✓ 


£  \\vc  ihcologiai  a 


PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


Purchased  by  the  Hamill  Missionary  Fund. 


Division 


Section 


W  57 


MANCHURIA  AND  KOREA 


BY  THE  SAME  A  UTHOR 

THE  PERSIAN 
PROBLEM 

With  Maps  and  Illustrations 
Demy  8vo,  $3.50 


London.,  Isbister  &.  C® 


MANCHURIA  AND 
KOREA 


H.  J.  WHIGHAM 

AUTHOR  OF  “  THE  PERSIAN  PROBLEM  ”  ETC. 


WITH  A  MAT  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
1904 


CONTENTS 


CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  The  Birth  of  Dalny . 1 

II.  How  Russia  Occupied  New-Chwang  .  .  .14 

III.  Southern  Manchuria  ......  30 

IY.  The  Manchurian  Railway . 44 

V.  On  the  Road  .  .  .  61 

YI.  Kharbin . 75 

VII.  Fighting  the  Brigands . .92 

VIII.  The  Military  Situation . 106 

IX.  The  Economic  Situation  in  Manchuria  .  121 

X.  Trade  Questions . 138 

XI.  The  Evacuation  of  Manchuria  .  .  .  .156 

XII.  A  Visit  to  Seoul . 176 

XIII.  Franco-Russian  Intrigue  in  Korea  .  .189 

XIV.  The  Present  Situation  in  Korea  .  .  .206 

XV.  German  Ambitions . 218 

XVI.  Railways  and  Spheres  of  Influence  .  .  233 


NOTE 


The  following  chapters  were  written  by  the 
author  at  the  close  of  1903 ,  but  owing  to  his 
sudden  departure  for  the  seat  of  war  he  had  no 
opportunity  of  revising  them.  It  was  also  his 
intention  to  summarise  the  general  position. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Map — Manchuria  and  Korea  . 

Frontispiece 
To  face  paffc 

Dalny — General  View . 

1 

Dalny — The  Official  Quarter  .... 

16 

Frontier  Guard  on  the  Manchurian  Railway 

32 

The  Author’s  Train  Derailed  .... 

48 

Russians  Guarding  an  Uncompleted  Bridge 

64 

The  Railway  and  the  Yellow  Sea 

80 

Typical  Manchurian  Landscape  .... 

96 

On  the  Yalu  ^ 

.  112 

Temporary  Trestle  Bridge  in  Manchuria  J 

Seoul.  The  Square  before  the  New  Palace 

164 

Fusan . 

180 

A  Korean  Village . 

.  196 

Chinese  Junks  on  the  Yalu  .... 

.  224 

CHAPTER  I 


THE  BIRTH  OF  DALNY" 

The  summer  of  1901  saw  the  end  of  the  famous  Inter¬ 
national  Expedition  to  China.  After  nearly  a  year’s 
haggling  the  wily  representatives  of  the  Empress 
Dowager  at  Peking  had  proved  victorious ;  the 
Powers  were  tired  to  death  of  interminable  negotia¬ 
tions,  which  as  often  as  not  led  to  unseemly  squabbles 
amongst  themselves ;  about  half  of  the  “  irrevocable  ” 
demands  of  the  peace  protocol  had  been  whittled 
down  until  they  were  entirely  deprived  of  their 
original  intention,  the  other  half  were  being  rapidly 
disposed  of  like  Government  measures  in  the  House 
of  Commons  when  the  twelfth  of  August  draws 
near ;  the  Imperial  Court  was  publishing  insolent, 
edicts  while  packing  up  for  the  return  to  Peking  ; 
the  debacle  had  begun,  and  the  armies  of  the  Powers, 
were  melting  away  like  the  snows  beneath  a  summer 
sun. 

The  one  Power  that  stayed  where  it  was  and  said 
as  little  as  possible  was  Russia.  The  Russian  troops 
had  long  ago  been  withdrawn  from  Chih-li  in  order 
that  the  Tsar  might  the  better  pose  as  the  friend 
and  protector  of  distracted  China ;  but  the  three 
Eastern  Provinces,  which  go  under  the  collective 
title  of  Manchuria,  were  still  occupied  by  a  large 


2 


THE  BIRTH  OF  DALNY 


and  increasing  Russian  army ;  the  Chinese  Eastern 
Railway  which  had  been  pulled  to  pieces  by  the 
Boxers  was  being  rapidly  restored,  so  much  so  that 
by  June  it  was  reported  that  through  communication 
had  been  established  between  Vladivostok  and  Port 
Arthur  vid  Khar  bin  ;  even  the  Treaty  Port  of  New- 
chwang  was,  contrary  to  all  precedent,  in  the  hands 
of  a  Russian  Administration.  Nobody  really  knew 
what  was  goingoninManchuria.  The  Russian  Govern- 
ment  had  already  made  numerous  proposals  with 
regard  to  the  evacuation  of  the  country  which 
Foreign  Governments  and  the  Foreign  press  appa¬ 
rently  accepted  in  good  faith  ;  it  was  even  suggested 
in  a  leading  Japanese  paper  that  Port  Arthur  was 
to  be  abandoned  and  a  return  made  to  the  line  of 
the  Amur.  The  English  and  American  press  was 
♦equally  credulous,  especially  the  American,  and  I 
well  remember  a  severe  article  which  appeared  about 
that  time  in  an  important  New  York  organ  wherein 
the  more  suspicious  section  of  the  English  press  was 
soundly  scolded  for  its  ridiculous  hostility  to  Russia. 
But  though  the  discussion  went  on  as  to  whether 
Russia  would  or  would  not  evacuate  Manchuria, 
nobody  seemed  to  take  much  trouble  to  examine 
the  actual  facts  of  the  case  or  to  visit  the  scene  of 
operations ;  and  so  it  occurred  to  me  in  June  of  1901 
to  go  and  see  for  myself  what  the  Russians  were  doing 
in  the  North. 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  there  were  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  a  British  subject  travelling  in  Man¬ 
churia  ;  nor  is  it  necessary  to  remark  that  all 
such  difficulties  were  ridiculed  by  the  Russian 


THE  BIRTH  OF  DALNY 


consular  official  in  Shanghai.  Indeed,  so  certain 
was  that  gentleman  of  his  facts  that  he  advised  my 
returning  to  Europe  vid  the  Manchurian  Railway, 
which  he  assured  me  was  finished  and  in  working 
order,  in  preference  to  taking  the  longer  Amur  route. 
I  happened  to  know  from  other  sources  that  the 
rails  were  not  laid  much  beyond  Mukden.  But  such 
discrepancies  in  respect  of  easily  ascertainable  facts 
were  not  confined  to  Shanghai.  At  Cheefoo,  on  my 
way  north,  I  met  a  British  officer  who  had  intended 
to  reach  the  Siberian  railroad  vid  Manchuria,  and 
had  taken  the  trouble  to  go  across  to  Port  Arthur 
to  make  inquiries  at  railway  headquarters.  There 
he  had  been  told  that  there  would  be  no  difficulty 
whatever  in  going  by  train  all  the  way  from  New- 
chwang  to  St.  Petersburg — and  this  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  there  were  two  gaps  of  over  a  hundred 
miles  each  in  the  line  and  no  passengers  were  accepted 
beyond  Mukden. 

For  my  own  part,  as  my  object  was  not  to  return 
to  Europe  but  to  see  what  I  could  of  the  Russian 
movements  in  Manchuria,  I  was  not  much  affected 
by  Russian  promises  which  I  was  in  a  position  to 
discount,  but  I  secured,  as  a  matter  of  form,  a  pass¬ 
port,  vised  by  the  Russian  consul  in  Shanghai,  per¬ 
mitting  me  to  travel  in  Russian  territory  and  started 
for  Port  Arthur  by  way  of  Cheefoo. 

At  that  time  there  were  no  direct  steamers  from 
Shanghai  to  Dalny,  and  only  an  occasional  boat 
running  from  the  Yangtze  region  to  Port  Arthur  ; 
so  it  was  necessary  to  take  a  steamer  to  Cheefoo,  and 
from  there  a  little  packet  ran  nightly  to  Port  Arthur, 


4 


THE  BIRTH  OF  DALNY 


carrying  the  mails  and  a  host  of  Shantung  coolies 
for  work  on  the  railway.  Fortunately  for  the  coolies 
it  was  not  a  very  long  crossing — a  matter  of  ten 
hours  or  so — for  they  were  so  closely  packed  between 
decks  that  they  could  hardly  sit  down.  The  stream 
of  labourers  into  Manchuria  is  almost  incessant, 
because  the  majority  do  not  settle  in  the  country  but 
return  to  the  family  roof  tree  in  Shantung  as  soon  as 
they  have  saved  up  a  few  roubles.  They  take  their 
rice  with  them,  enough  to  last  a  month  or  two,  and 
spend  nothing  at  all  beyond  a  few  cash  for  tea  in 
the  strange  country.  They  are  a  healthy  lot,  these 
Shantung  coolies,  but  inclined  to  be  mal-odorous,  so 
that  wre  were  not  sorry  to  see  the  coast  of  the  Liao¬ 
tung  peninsula  loom  up  a  little  after  daybreak.  We 
found  ourselves  confronted  by  two  long  converging 
lines  of  barren  rocky  hills  which  ran  at  an  obtuse 
angle  into  a  pocket,  at  the  bottom  of  which  was 
Port  Arthur  itself.  From  a  spectator’s  point  of 
view  Port  Arthur  is  a  miserable  hole.  The  harbour 
is  practically  landlocked,  so  that  at  a  few  miles 
distance  one  appears  to  be  approaching  a  solid  wall 
of  rock.  In  this  respect  it  resembles  Santiago,  which 
with  hardly  any  assistance  in  the  shape  of  modern 
artillery  offered  so  impregnable  a  front  to  the  fleet 
of  Admiral  Sampson  in  the  Spanish-American 
War.  But  there  the  resemblance  ends,  for  the  inlet 
of  the  sea  at  Port  Arthur  is  wretchedly  small,  and 
the  town,  such  as  it  is,  being  just  behind  the 
entrance,  would  have  a  very  unpleasant  time  of  it 
during  a  bombardment  by  a  hostile  fleet,  while  the 
present  accommodation  inside  the  harbour  is  very 


THE  BIRTH  OF  DALNY 


5 


inadequate ;  protection  could  only  be  given  to  a 
very  small  squadron.  Nor  is  there  any  room  for 
commerce.  Trading  vessels  must  anchor  almost  in 
the  fairway  and  landing  facilities  are  about  as  bad 
as  they  can  be. 

But  it  must  be  remembered  that  Port  Arthur  is 
not  intended  by  the  Russians  to  be  a  commercial 
port  at  all,  and  criticisms  levelled  against  them  on 
the  score  of  the  ill-success  of  Port  Arthur  as  a 
trading  place  are  quite  beside  the  mark.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  is  true  that  even  as  a  place  of  arms  it 
is  far  from  satisfactory  ;  but  it  would  be  a  mistake 
to  condemn  it  prematurely.  The  narrowness  of  the 
entrance  has  its  good  as  well  as  its  bad  points,  and 
it  is  far  from  being  the  case,  as  I  have  often  seen  it 
stated,  that  the  sinking  of  a  single  ship  would 
prevent  all  egress.  The  mouth  of  the  harbour  at 
Santiago  is  distinctly  narrower,  yet  it  is  a  matter  of 
history  how  two  ships  were  sunk  there  without 
obstructing  the  fair  way.  Inside  the  entrance  there 
are  two  basins,  the  larger  to  the  West  and  the 
smaller  to  the  East,  The  larger  being  so  shallow  as 
only  to  accommodate  torpedo  boats,  at  present,  is  of 
very  little  use,  and  the  Eastern  basin,  round  which 
the  dirty  little  town  is  huddled,  is  too  small  for  the 
requirements  of  a  large  fleet.  But  it  is  the  intention 
of  the  Russian  Government  to  dredge  the  Western 
harbour  and  to  build  a  residential  and  official 
quarter,  the  ground  for  which  is  already  marked 
out.  on  the  North  side  of  the  basin.  When  all  that 
is  done — and  it  will  be  a  matter  of  years  and  of 
millions — Port  Arthur  will  be  an  efficient  as  well  as 


6 


THE  BIRTH  OF  DALNY 


an  impregnable  naval  base.  As  it  was,  when  I 
visited  the  place,  it  was  a  hive  of  activity.  All 
along  the  sea  front  the  forts  were  being 
strengthened  ;  a  steady  din  from  morning  to  night 
came  from  the  docks  where  torpedo  boats  were  being 
built  at  rapid  speed,  while  out  in  the  open  destroyers 
were  running  up  and  down  at  target  practice. 
There  was  something  of  almost  feverish  expectancy 
in  the  air,  and  .Russian  officers  were  sure  that  decks 
would  be  cleared  for  action  before  many  months  were 
over.  But  soldiers  and  sailors  are  not  always  the 
best  prophets  in  such  matters.  Certainly,  Japan 
might  just  as  well  sail  over  and  try  to  take 
Gibraltar  or  Cronstadt  as  attempt  to  reduce  Port 
Arthur  by  assault.  When  we  looked  down  from 
the  high  hill  behind  the  harbour  on  the  camps  and 
barracks  of  something  like  an  army  corps,  and 
turned  our  glasses  along  the  sea  front  with  their 
tiers  of  guns  and  listened  to  the  rapid  booming  of 
the  target  practice  out  at  sea,  and  the  everlasting 
hammering  of  bolts  into  steel  plates,  we  could  not 
refrain  from  smiling  at  the  idea,  so  prevalent  about 
that  time,  that  Russia  had  repented  of  her  Man¬ 
churian  schemes,  and  might  even  retire  from  Port 
Arthur. 

A  day  spent  at  the  port  seemed  to  meet  all  the 
requirements  of  the  case,  especially  as  the  hotel 
accommodation  was  of  the  worst,  and  suspicion 
immediately  attached  to  stray  Britishers  who  make 
a  lengthened  stay.  I  was  accompanied  as  far  as 
New-chwang  by  a  friend  who  had  met  me  at  Cheefoo, 
and  we  both  expected  to  find  some  difficulty  in 


THE  BIRTH  OF  DALNY 


7 


travelling  by  rail,  as  the  line  was  not  yet  open  for 
regular  traffic.  We  were  advised  not  to  ask  for 
permission,  and  we  found  this  an  excellent  plan  ;  for 
no  obstacle  was  placed  in  our  way  and  we  were  not 
even  charged  a  railway  fare.  Going  to  Dalny  we 
even  had  a  first-class  carriage  and  the  journey,  of 
forty  versts  or  so,  did  not  occupy  more  than  four 
hours,  so  that  starting  from  Port  Arthur  about  six 
o’clock  in  the  evening,  and  allowing  for  a  long  stop 
at  the  junction  where  the  Dalny  branch  leaves  the 
main  line  from  Port  Arthur  to  New-chwang,  we 
found  ourselves  in  a  new  modern  hotel  at  Dalny 
well  before  midnight. 

On  the  southern  side  of  the  Bay  of  Talienwan  lies 
the  eastern  terminus  of  the  Trans-Siberian  Railway. 
Its  position  at  the  end  of  that  gigantic  system  would 
in  itself  lend  interest  to  the  new  seaport,  but  Dalny, 
apart  from  its  railway  connection,  is,  even  in  its 
present  incipient  form,  unique  among  all  seaports  of 
the  world  owing  to  the  method  of  its  birth  and 
growth.  Nature  has  done  little  to  mark  out 
the  new  terminus  as  a  future  metropolis.  The 
southern  end  of  the  Liao-tung  Peninsula  is  an  out¬ 
crop  of  barren  hills,  rising  here  and  there  to  the 
dignity  of  mountains,  into  which  the  Bay  of  Talien¬ 
wan  inserts  itself  for  many  miles  without  affording 
even  a  natural  harbour.  The  shores  of  the  bay  are 
shallow  and  shelving,  and  because  of  its  large  expanse 
the  deep  water  is  exposed  to  the  violence  of  any 
tempest.  The  land  is  almost  treeless,  and  cultivated 
only  in  the  valleys  which  lie  hidden  among  the 
brown  hills ;  the  inhabitants  grow  a  scanty  crop  of 


8 


THE  BIRTH  OF  DALNY 


giant  millet,  and  manage  to  exist  on  the  narrow 
margin  between  bare  sufficiency  and  starvation.  On 
such  an  unpromising  site  the  Eussian  Government 
is  building  a  large  seaport  town  with  ample  docks 
and  wharves,  with  a  splendid  sea  frontage  and  con¬ 
venient  railway  depot,  with  wide  streets  and  boule¬ 
vards  and  shady  gardens,  with  a  commercial  quarter 
that  will  eclipse  every  foreign  settlement  in  the 
East  and  a  residential  district  which  might  grace 
Manchester  or  Philadelphia.  Of  course,  that  is  the 
plan.  The  Eussian  Government  provides  the  docks, 
wharves,  railway,  and  roads  and  trees.  The  houses 
are  to  be  built  by  the  population  which  is  to  be. 
But  even  in  its  present  embryo  state  Dalny  is  one 
of  the  marvels  of  the  present  age.  For  surely 
nowhere  else  in  the  world  has  a  Government  built 
a  city  and  port  of  such  dimensions  on  absolutely 
barren  soil,  hundreds  of  miles  from  its  own  borders, 
without  a  penny’s  worth  of  trade  already  in  existence 
to  justify  the  expense.  Dalny  is,  in  fact,  a  “  boom  ” 
town  without  any  reason  for  a  “  boom,”  but  different 
in  this  respect,  that  the  mushroom  growth  is  the 
work  of  a  Government  which  is  determined  to  build 
itself  a  metropolis  complete  in  every  detail. 

There  is  something  splendid  and  Oriental  and 
almost  barbaric  in  this  wholesale  creation.  Another 
Power  would  have  been  content  to  build  its  railway 
and  begin  the  harbour  tentatively,  and  let  trade  do 
the  rest.  Not  so  Eussia.  Dalny  is  to  spring  into 
the  world  full  grown  and  armed  at  every  point, 
Minerva-like,  from  the  brain  of  the  Eussian  Jove. 
The  harbour,  which  has  to  be  constructed  at  enormous 


THE  BIRTH  OF  DALNY 


9 


expense,  by  filling  and  dredging  the  bay  by  the 
square  mile,  with  moles  and  breakwaters  and  dry 
docks,  is  to  be  capable  of  accommodating  the  largest 
ships  afloat  alongside  its  wharves,  and  will  eventually 
take  in  all  the  shipping  which  could  be  got  together 
at  any  time  in  the  East.  The  sea  front  and  ware¬ 
houses  are  to  stand  on  ground  which  was  in  1901 
under  the  water  even  at  low  tide.  The  administra¬ 
tive  portion  of  the  town  is  already  in  existence. 
Then  comes  the  commercial  quarter,  with  wide 
macadamised  streets,  which  are  to-day  being  dug 
out  of  the  hillside,  and  beyond  that  is  the  residential 
quarter,  for  which  nearly  two  square  miles  of  hill 
slope  are  being  levelled  off  and  intersected  with 
magnificent  roads.  Back  from  the  town  runs  a 
gully  through  the  hills  right  to  the  open  sea  on 
the  far  side,  which  is  to  give  space  for  a  beautiful 
wooded  drive  of  seven  or  eight  miles,  and  will  finally 
debouch  on  a  sandy  beach,  where  the  future  million¬ 
aires  of  Dalny  will  have  their  summer  bungalows. 
Even  this  drive  was  already  half  completed,  though 
there  was  hardly  a  soul  in  Dalny  except  the  Russian 
officials  and  contractors.  Along  this  valley  trees 
are  being  planted  and  conserved,  as  elsewhere  on 
the  peninsula,  in  order  that  the  barren  hillsides  may 
some  day  be  pine -clad  and  the  valleys  green  with 
oak  and  hickory.  Nor  have  the  Chinese  been  for¬ 
gotten.  Their  city  is  apart,  but  well  laid  out,  with 
a  fine  theatre  where  the  labourer  may  spend  some 
of  his  wages  for  the  good  of  the  place  instead  of 
hoarding  them  and  sending  them  at  length  to  his 
family  in  Shan-tung. 


10 


THE  BIRTH  OF  DALNY 


The  whole  elaborate  and  munificent  scheme  was 
to  have  been  completed  by  the  present  year,  1903, 
and  then  nothing  would  be  wanting  but  the  popu¬ 
lation.  Already  in  1902  the  port  was  partially 
open  to  trade,  and  the  small  breakwater  afforded 
berths  to  several  large  ships  at  a  time  with  a  draft 
twenty  or  twenty-one  feet,  and  building  lots  were 
auctioned  realising  a  sum  of  400,000  roubles  at  the 
first  sale.  The  bigger  moles  and  the  Eastern  break¬ 
water  were  already  begun  in  1901  and  are  now 
practically  finished,  so  that  wharves  are  provided 
for  the  biggest  ocean  liners  afloat.  When  we 
examined  the  plan  of  the  harbour  two  years  ago  it 
seemed  almost  chimerical,  so  immense  was  the  work 
mapped  out  for  the  contractors.  To-day  the  plan  is 
realised  and  only  the  shipping  is  wanting. 

Unless  you  go  to  Dalny  you  can  hardly  believe  in 
the  creation  of  so  large  a  town  on  a  barren  hillside 
with  nothing  but  prospects  to  justify  its  existence. 
And  when  you  have  seen  the  place  and  had  ocular 
evidence  of  the  lavish  outlay  of  the  Government  you 
can  hardly  help  remarking  that  at  least  half  the 
work  might  have  been  left  to  the  future  merchants 
of  the  place  to  accomplish.  To  cut  a  forty  foot 
pleasure  drive  through  the  hills  for  seven  or  eight 
miles  before  the  municipality  is  actually  in  existence 
seems  to  be  almost  an  act  of  supererogation.  On 
the  other  hand,  Dalny  is  the  terminus  of  the  greatest 
railway  in  the  world,  and  to  spend  a  million  roubles 
more  or  less  in  glorifying  the  terminus  is  no  more 
to  be  taken  into  serious  account  than  the  cost  of  the 
gold  leaf  in  the  scroll  of  a  battleship.  For  Dalny  is 


THE  BIRTH  OF  DALNY 


II 


now  the  definite  terminus.  The  alignment  has  been 
brought  south  from  the  Amur  Province  to  Man¬ 
churia  and  altered  again  and  again,  but  a  little 
reflection  shows  that  there  is  no  other  port  available 
in  China  to  the  south,  and  even  if  the  Russians  had 
Corea  to-morrow  Dalny  is  much  more  favourably 
situated  than  Masampho. 

Dalny  is,  after  all,  the  best,  if  not  the  only,  place 
which  could  have  been  selected.  By  spending  money 
the  harbour  can  be  increased  to  any  size,  and  the 
same  might  almost  be  said  of  the  town.  Those  who 
love  analogies  see  in  Dalny  the  future  New  York  of 
the  East,  and  the  exaggeration  is  not  so  great  as  to 
be  grotesque.  It  is,  or  will  be,  the  only  harbour 
north  of  Hong  Kong  where  large  ocean-going 
steamers  can  comfortably  discharge  cargo,  for  the 
Woo-sung  anchorage  is  often  impracticable  for 
lighters  in  rough  weather  and  the  German  harbour 
at  Tsing-tao  has  no  such  trade  prospects  as  Dalny 
to  induce  ocean  liners  to  call  there.  But  apart 
from  the  Trans-Siberian  Railway  Dalny  has  great 
importance  as  the  future  port  of  Manchuria.  Other 
foreigners,  and  especially  Britishers  in  China,  ridi¬ 
cule  the  idea  of  Dalny  capturing  the  trade  of  New- 
chwang.  But  this  is  exactly  what  is  going  to 
happen.  As  far  as  imports  are  concerned,  America 
and  Japan  are  the  two  great  Manchurian  traders. 
At  present  American  goods  must  be  shipped  to 
Shanghai,  and  there  transhipped  to  New-chwang. 
The  railway  from  Dalny  to  New-chwang  is  two 
hundred  miles.  Yet  so  high  are  the  freights  on  the 
coast  of  China  that  it  will  be  much  cheaper  to  ship 


12 


THE  BIRTH  OF  DALNY 


direct  to  Dalny  and  carry  by  rail  to  New-chwang 
and  Mukden  than  to  ship  to  Shanghai  and  tranship 
to  New-chwang.  New-chwang  can  never  be  a  port 
for  ocean-going  steamers,  and  it  is  closed  for  four 
months  in  the  year.  Dalny  is  open  all  the  year 
round,  and  will  take  in  all  the  liners  that  want  to 
go  there.  The  American  trading  company  which  is 
the  medium  for  American  trade  in  the  East  will 
ship  its  goods  direct  from  the  States  of  Talienwan 
Bay.  For  Japan  Dalny  is  more  conveniently  situated 
than  New-chwang,  and  very  soon  Dalny  will  have 
captured  50  per  cent,  of  the  Manchurian  trade. 

It  is  already  the  fashion  to  say  that  Dalny  has 
been  a  failure,  that  even  the  Russian  Government 
has  recognised  the  fact  and  is  reducing  its  expendi¬ 
ture  on  the  place  in  consequence.  Such  a  view,  to 
say  the  least  of  it,  is  rather  a  hasty  one.  Dalny 
depends  entirely  upon  the  Manchurian  railway 
system,  which  is  hardly  yet  in  a  condition  to  handle 
the  trade  of  the  interior,  nor  will  the  trade  of  the 
country  flourish  until  the  Russian  occupation  is 
admitted  and  a  stable  government  is  erected.  In 
reducing  expenses,  M.  Witte  is  only  following  the 
dictates  of  ordinary  common  sense,  which  ought  to 
have  had  more  weight  even  before  his  visit.  Never, 
perhaps,  in  the  whole  history  of  colonisation  has  so 
much  money  been  so  recklessly  squandered  as  in 
Manchuria,  and  it  was  high  time  M.  Witte  knew 
what  his  subordinates  were  about.  It  is  true, 
moreover,  that  since  the  Dalny  scheme  was  started 
the  Russians  have  realised  not  only  the  value  of 
New-chwang,  but  the  possibility  of  securing  that 


THE  BIRTH  OF  DALNY 


13 


port  for  Russia,  and  it  stands  to  reason  that  the 
Liao  River  will  always  be  a  great  trade  channel ; 
but  none  of  these  things  can  prevent  Dalny  from 
being  the  ocean  terminus  of  the  Trans-Siberian 
Railway,  and  as  such  it  attains  to  a  world-wide 
importance,  or  will  do  so,  in  the  near  future.  In  the 
meantime,  though  laid  out  with  due  regard  to  all 
the  most  modern  requirements,  it  cannot  escape  the 
defects  of  Russian  management.  When  we  visited 
the  place  there  was  an  excellent  hotel — excellent, 
that  is  to  say,  as  far  as  construction  and  equipment 
went — which  the  Russian  Government  had  built 
and  furnished  and  let  out  to  a  Russian  hotel-keeper 
at  the  low  rent  of  ^15  a  month.  The  hotel-keeper 
was  a  man  of  the  lowest  type,  who  confined  his 
attention  to  the  drinking  of  vodka,  with  the  result 
that  his  hotel,  which  might  have  fed  and  lodged 
any  number  of  officials  and  contractors  engaged  on 
the  extensive  works  of  the  new  port,  was  in  a  state 
of  disreputable  dirt  and  almost  deserted  by  the 
public.  It  was  characteristic  of  Russian  methods 
to  erect  such  a  building  at  great  expense  and  then 
to  hand  it  over  to  a  confirmed  inebriate.  Much  of 
the  administration  of  the  port  will  be  perforce 
carried  on  in  a  similar  fashion,  just  because  that 
is  typical  of  all  Russian  administration.  Neverthe¬ 
less,  Dalny  has  a  great  future  before  it. 


CHAPTER  II 


HOW  RUSSIA  OCCUPIED  NEW-C HWANG 

The  journey  by  rail  from  Dalny  to  New-chwang 
requires  very  little  description  and  it  has  doubtless 
become  a  much  more  comfortable  undertaking  than  it 
was  in  1901.  In  those  days  the  line  was  not  officially 
open  to  traffic,  though  it  was  actually  employed  to 
carry  both  passengers  and  goods  as  far  as  the  very 
limited  amount  of  rolling-stock  would  allow.  Euro¬ 
pean  passengers  paid  no  fares  at  all,  and  the  Chinese 
who  patronised  the  railway  in  great  numbers  were 
taxed  according  to  the  needs  of  the  train  conductors, 
who  pocketed  the  entire  proceeds.  In  this  way  the 
Russian  Government  was  losing  a  certain  amount  of 
revenue,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  preserved  its  right 
to  prevent  either  passengers  or  freight  travelling 
over  the  railway.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  no  obstacle 
was  put  in  the  way  of  any  one  going  as  far  north  as 
Mukden,  and  the  fact  that  we  paid  no  fares  should 
have  obviated  any  tendency  to  criticise  too  severely 
the  management  of  the  line. 

The  first  part  of  the  railway  winds  its  way  through 
the  hilly  and  rather  barren  Liao-tung  Peninsula, 
while  the  second  half  runs  over  the  level  floor  of  the 
Liao  Delta.  As  the  coast  is  never  far  away,  a 
number  of  streams  have  to  be  crossed ;  otherwise 


HOW  RUSSIA  OCCUPIED  NEW-CHWANG  15 


there  has  been  no  engineering  difficulty  to  overcome. 
The  whole  line  as  far  as  Ta-sia-chiao,  where  we 
branched  off  for  New-chwang,  was  even  then,  in 
spite  of  the  Boxer  troubles,  in  good  condition  and 
well  ballasted,  and  there  was  only  one  bridge  which 
was  not  finished.  In  these  circumstances  the  journey 
from  Port  Arthur  or  Dalny  to  New-chwang  might 
have  been  accomplished  in  six  hours  without  running 
over  thirty  miles  an  hour  on  an  average ;  but  the 
delays  were  such  that  just  double  that  time  had  elapsed 
before  we  reached  the  Russian  settlement  on  the 
Liao  River.  Long  waits  were  apparently  necessary 
at  the  two  junctions  where  the  Dalny  and  New- 
chwang  branches  leave  the  main  line.  But  we  had 
other  and  more  irregular  stops  at  every  station 
where  there  was  a  refreshment-room.  The  stations 
were  for  the  most  part  in  process  of  construction, 
and  the  refreshment-room  was  in  every  case  a 
deplorable  hovel,  where  the  engineers  and  other 
employees  of  the  line  were  accustomed  to  wash  down 
the  most  unappetising  food  with  liberal  drafts  of  vodka. 
Our  engine-driver  and  stoker  visited  each  one  of  these 
“  buffets,”  as  the  Russians  call  them,  their  consump¬ 
tion  of  vodka  increasing  with  the  distance  and  with 
the  heat  of  the  sun.  The  result  was  that  the  engine 
was  driven  with  such  vigour  about  the  middle  of  the 
day  as  to  run  over  a  Chinese  coolie,  an  accident  which 
kept  us  at  a  full  stop  for  at  least  an  hour;  for  unlike 
the  modern  motorist  we  pulled  up  immediately  to  see 
what  could  be  done  for  the  poor  fellow.  As  it  turned 
out  the  victim  was  afflicted  with  elephantiasis  and 
had  probably  committed  suicide. 


16  HOW  RUSSIA  OCCUPIED  NEW-CHWANG 


At  length,  long  after  dark,  we  came  into  the 
Russian  settlement  called  Yinkow,  which  is  about 
three  miles  above  the  Treaty  Port  of  New-chwang.. 
Naturally  no  provision  was  made  for  the  transporta¬ 
tion  of  passengers  from  the  railway  terminus  to  the 
Treaty  Port,  and  we  should  have  been  obliged  to 
spend  the  night  on  the  tracks  had  not  we  found 
a  launch  waiting  to  carry  a  Russian  official  and 
his  family,  and  on  that  we  managed  to  secure  a 
passage. 

New-chwang  lies  outside  the  track  of  the  tourist, 
and  is  much  less  frequented  by  the  ordinary  resident 
in  China  than  even  the  smaller  Yangtze  ports  where 
the  easy  game  laws,  or  want  of  game  laws,  in  China 
is  an  attraction  to  sportsmen.  It  witnessed  a  few 
incidents  in  the  Chino- Japanese  war,  but  never 
attained  to  anything  approaching  notoriety  until 
it  became  a  bone  of  contention  between  Russia  and 
the  other  interested  Powers.  It  is  not  surprising, 
therefore,  that  some  rather  extraordinary  statements 
have  been  made  about  the  Port  by  writers  who 
have  never  visited  it,  though  the  most  astonishing 
of  all  was  one  perpetrated  by  Lord  Charles  Beresford, 
who  complains  in  his  work,  entitled  the  “  Break¬ 
up  of  China,”  that  the  Russians  would  not  allow  any 
steamers  but  their  own  to  run  up  the  Liao  River  to 
Kirin.  The  author  had  personally  visited  New- 
chwang  and  had  gleaned  a  number  of  interesting 
statistics  there,  so  it  is  rather  curious  that  he  should 
not  have  known  that  steam  navigation  is  impossible 
on  the  Liao  River  beyond  San-she-ho,  and  even  as 
far  as  that  it  is  only  possible  for  steam  launches ; 


DALNY— THE  OFFICIAL  QUARTER 


HOW  RUSSIA  OCCUPIED  NEW-CHWANG  17 


and  in  any  case  nothing  short  of  an  airship  could 
get  to  Kirin,  which  is  nearly  two  hundred  miles 
from  the  nearest  point  on  the  Liao  River. 

Generally  speaking,  however,  it  is  known  that 
New-chwang  is  the  port  jpar  excellence  of  Manchuria 
because  it  stands  at  the  mouth  of  the  river  which 
drains  the  most  thickly  populated  part  of  that 
country  and  brings  the  agricultural  products  of 
Manchuria  within  easy  reach  of  the  rest  of  China 
and  Japan.  For  that  reason  it  has  been  considered 
by  some  people  the  height  of  folly  on  the  part  of 
Russia  to  attempt  to  make  a  new  harbour  for 
Southern  Manchuria  in  the  Bay  of  Ta-lien-wan, 
away  at  the  end  of  a  barren  peninsula.  Against 
those  who  have  taken  this  point  of  view,  it  must 
be  argued  that  however  conveniently  situated  as 
the  natural  outlet  for  the  Liao  valley,  New-chwang 
can  never  be  a  thoroughly  satisfactory  port,  nor 
could  it  rise  to  the  occasion  as  the  ocean  terminus  of 
the  Trans-Siberian  Railway.  The  Liao,  like  most 
other  rivers,  has  a  bar,  which  excludes  ships  draw¬ 
ing  more  than  18  feet,  that  is  to  say,  it  keeps  out 
all  ocean  liners  ;  and  even  if  this  difficulty  could  be 
surmounted  by  dredging,  which  is  extremely  doubt¬ 
ful,  there  remains  the  fact  that  the  river  is  com¬ 
pletely  closed  to  traffic  by  ice  for  four  months  in 
every  year.  Whatever  therefore  may  be  the  present 
state  of  Dalny,  it  is  perfectly  certain  that  when 
Manchuria  begins  to  develop  the  resources  which 
she  has  within  her  under  a  settled  form  of  govern¬ 
ment  she  will  require  the  services  of  Dalny  at  least 
as  much  as  of  New-chwang.  The  time  will  come 

B 


18  HOW  RUSSIA  OCCUPIED  NEW-CHWANG 


beyond  a  doubt  when  foreign  manufactures  will  be 
imported  direct  to  Manchuria  in  ocean  steamers, 
and  such  steamers  can  only  go  to  Dalny ;  and  if  the 
bulk  of  the  import  trade  comes  to  Dalny  a  certain 
portion  of  the  export  business  will  follow  suit. 
There  is  no  reason  however,  why  the  prosperity 
of  Dalny  should  ruin  New-chwang,  since  the  most 
important  item  in  the  trade  of  the  Treaty  Port  is 
the  export  of  beans  and  bean-cakes  which  go  to 
Southern  China  and  Japan,  and  can  therefore  be 
carried  in  coasting  steamers.  Nor  will  the  route  of 
the  imports  be  altered  in  a  day.  The  Chinese  mer¬ 
chants  are  all  settled  at  New-chwang,  and  they  are 
accustomed  to  get  their  goods  by  way  of  Shanghai. 
The  great  bulk  of  the  business  of  the  foreign  houses 
is  shipping,  and  nearly  all  the  import  trade  is  in  the 
hands  of  Chinese  merchants,  who  are  always  credited 
with  extreme  conservatism.  In  reality  the  Chinese 
merchant  is  not  half  so  conservative  in  his  ideas  as 
many  of  his  British  colleagues.  It  seems  to  be  for¬ 
gotten  very  often  that  the  Treaty  Port  of  New- 
chwang,  with  its  60,000  inhabitants  and  thriving 
trade,  is  a  mushroom  growth  of  recent  years,  having 
sprung  up^since  the  time  that  Yingtse,  which  we  call 
the  Port  of  New-chwang,  or  New-chwang  for  short, 
was  opened  to  foreign  trade.  If  the  Chinese  trader 
finds  it  to  his  advantage  to  open  a  branch  business 
at  Dalny  he  will  very  soon  do  so,  and  he  will  have 
to  do  so  in  the  immediate  future  unless  he  wants 
to  be  out -rivalled  in  business. 

It  is  not  my  intention,  however,  to  examine  the 
trade  prospects  of  New-chwang  at  the  present' 


HOW  RUSSIA  OCCUPIED  NEW-CHWANG  19 


moment.  We  were  much  more  interested  on  our 
arrival  in  the  political  situation,  which,  to  say  the 
least  of  it,  was  peculiar.  Here  was  a  Treaty  Port 
being  administered  despotically  by  the  one  Treaty 
Power  whose  commercial  interests  in  the  place  were 
non-existent.  There  were  two  Russian  gunboats  in 
the  river  and  the  Russian  flag  was  flying — as  it  flies 
to-day — over  the  Imperial  Chinese  Custom  House. 
No  other  flag  was  in  evidence  at  all  except  over  the 
various  foreign  consulates.  The  manner  in  which 
this  situation  was  brought  about  provides  an  ex¬ 
cellent  example  of  the  way  in  which  the  most  trivial 
events  may  effect  the  destiny  of  empires. 

When  the  Boxer  movement  was  at  its  height,  the 
disaffection  spread  rapidly  in  the  province  of  Mukden, 
and  overwhelmed  the  important  town  of  Liao-Yang, 
which  is  only  two  days  march  from  New-chwang. 
At  the  Treaty  Port  itself  the  danger  was  never  so 
acute  as  it  was  at  Tientsin  or  Peking,  yet  pre¬ 
cautionary  measures  were  necessary,  and  the  British 
members  of  the  community,  as  early  as  July  21, 
1900,  wrote  to  the  Rear-Admiral  in  North  China 
for  a  gunboat.  What  they  wanted  was  protection 
against  Russian  invasion  rather  than  assistance  in 
dealing  with  the  Boxers.  Unfortunately  Admiral 
Bruce,  to  whom  the  application  was  made,  had  no 
eye  for  the  political  situation.  He  offered  a  gun¬ 
boat  to  take  away  refugees  if  necessary,  but  not  to 
protect  the  Port.  To  this  the  British  Consul  re¬ 
plied  that  no  one  wanted  to  escape,  but  every  one 
wanted  to  see  Great  Britain  represented  on  the 
Liao  River.  In  the  meantime  the  Russians  brought 


20  HOW  RUSSIA  OCCUPIED  NEW-CHWANG 


matters  to  a  crisis  by  attaching  the  stockade  on 
July  26,  and  threatening  bombardment  of  the  town 
on  July  28. 

The  Boxers  immediately  began  to  retaliate.  The 
foreign  part  of  the  town  was  barricaded,  and  the 
foreigners,  enrolled  as  volunteers,  prepared  for  the 
defence  of  their  quarter.  On  August  4  the  Boxers 
attempted  to  pass  the  barricade,  a  general  alarm 
was  given,  the  Russian  troops  and  the  Boxers 
engaged  outside  the  settlement,  and  two  Russian 
gunboats  bombarded  the  town.  The  Chinese  never 
made  any  real  resistance,  and  it  is  the  general 
opinion  in  New-chwang  that  if  matters  had  been 
left  to  the  Taotai  there  never  would  have  been  any 
fighting  at  all.  Certainly  the  Russians  made  the 
most  of  what  resistance  there  was,  and  killed,  as 
usual,  a  number  of  harmless  Chinese.  Then,  as  no 
other  power  was  represented  either  in  a  military  or 
naval  capacity,  the  Russian  flag  was  hoisted  over 
the  Custom  House,  and  the  town  surrendered  to 
the  Russians.  Next  day  Admiral  Alexeieff  arrived 
and  appointed  M.  Ostroverkoff,  the  Russian  Consul, 
Civil  Administrator  of  the  town.  Since  then  New- 
chwang  has  been  a  Russian  port. 

H.M.S.  Pigmy  arrived  after  the  event,  and  the 
British  inhabitants  drew  the  attention  of  its  com¬ 
mander  to  the  fact  of  the  Russian  occupation.  But 
it  was  useless  to  complain.  The  Russians,  according 
to  their  view  of  the  matter,  had  saved  the  situation, 
and  were  not  to  be  robbed  of  their  just  reward.  If 
the  British  Government,  with  its  comparatively 
large  interests  in  New-chwang,  would  not  even 


HOW  RUSSIA  OCCUPIED  NEW-CHWANG  21 


send  a  gunboat  to  defend  those  interests,  the  British 
community  must  submit  for  a  time  to  Russian  pro¬ 
tection.  British  subjects  might  maintain  that  the 
situation  never  realiy  required  saving,  and  that  the 
action  of  the  Russian  naval  commander  was  officious 
and  unnecessary.  But  that  could  not  so  easily  be 
proved  in  view  of  what  took  place  at  Tientsin  and 
Peking,  and  at  least  the  British  Government  might 
have  afforded  a  single  gunboat  to  be  on  the  safe 
side. 

I  have  never  heard  that  Admiral  Bruce  was  asked 
by  the  Government  to  explain  his  conduct  on  this 
occasion,  and  in  any  case  no  subsequent  explanation 
on  his  part  could  alter  the  situation.  It  was  simply 
bad  luck  that  we  happened  to  have  a  commanding 
officer  in  Northern  China  who,  though  an  excellent 
and  popular  sailor,  was  so  blind  to  the  political  con¬ 
ditions  of  the  time  that  he  frequently  declared  our 
interests  in  the  whole  of  Northern  China  to  be  un¬ 
worthy  of  discussion.  This  being  his  view,  it  is  not 
surprising  that  he  could  find  no  gunboat  for  duty  at 
New-chwang.  Nor  can  it  be  argued  in  his  favour 
that  the  ship  could  not  be  spared,  for  he  did  send 
the  Pigmy  after  he  had  been  appealed  to  a  second 
time,  but  when  it  was  too  late.  Possibly  our  Con¬ 
sular  representative  on  the  spot  might  have  shown 
a  bolder  front  to  the  Russians,  though  he  can  hardly 
be  blamed  when  he  was  refused  all  kind  of  naval 
protection.  It  is  interesting  to  notice  how  differently 
things  turned  out  in  the  similar  case  of  the  J apanese 
occupation  a  few  years  before  when  we  happened  to 
be  represented  by  an  official  who  did  regard  it 


22  HOW  RUSSIA  OCCUPIED  NEW-CHWANG 


as  his  duty  to  defend  British  interests  at  all 
costs. 

When  the  Japanese  were  at  New-chwang,  Mr. 
Hosie,  our  Consul  at  the  time,  was  dining  one  even¬ 
ing  with  the  Director  of  Customs  when  he  heard 
that ’the  Japanese  commander  was  about  to  take 
over  control  of  the  Customs.  Mr  Hosie  immediately 
ordered  the  British  flag  to  be  hoisted  over  the 
Customs  buildings,  sent  for  his  uniform,  and  when 
the  Japanese  officer  arrived  received  him  in  the 
name  of  the  Queen,  and  informed  him  that  the 
Customs  buildings  being  registered  in  the  name  of 
Sir  Robert  Hart  were  British  property,  and  could 
not  be  handed  over  to  any  foreign  Power.  On  that 
occasion  the  Japanese  had  undoubted  rights  on  their 
side.  They  were  actually  at  war  with  China,  they 
were  in  occupation  of  her  territory,  and  it  was 
natural  for  them  to  seize  the  Customs.  But  Mr. 
Hosie,  seeing  the  complications  which  might  follow 
from  the  taking  over  of  the  Customs,  which  were 
pledged  in  part  to  British  bondholders,  and  having 
this  advantage  on  his  side  that  the  Customs  build¬ 
ings  were  registered  as  British  property,  though  he 
had  not  even  a  volunteer  behind  him  to  back  him 
up,  considered  it  his  duty  immediately  and  without 
hesitation  to  defend  British  interests.  His  uniform 
was  sufficient  in  itself  to  stay  the  Japanese,  since 
they  could  not  put  him  aside  without  insulting  the 
British  sovereign. 

In  July  and  August  of  1900  our  position  was 
distinctly  stronger.  The  Russians  were  not  at  war 
with  China,  they  had  no  rights  of  conquest,  they 


HOW  RUSSIA  OCCUPIED  NEW-CHWANG  23 


were  not  even  the  sole  protectors  of  the  foreign 
settlement,  since  the  whole  male  portion  of  the 
foreign  community  was  converted  for  the  moment 
into  a  volunteer  force.  And  the  same  technical 
reasons  held  good  in  1 900,  which  enabled  the  British 
Consul  to  protect  the  Customs  against  the  Japanese 
five  years  before.  I  am  convinced,  therefore,  that  if 
Mr.  Hosie  had  been  at  New-chwang  during  the 
Boxer  trouble  the  Russian  flag  would  never  have 
gone  up  over  the  Imperial  Customs,  and  there 
would  have  been  no  Russian  Administrator  at  any 
time  in  the  Treaty  Port.  And  yet,  as  I  have 
explained,  our  Consular  representative  was  not 
altogether  to  blame,  was  certainly  not  so  much  at 
fault  as  our  Rear-Admiral  commanding  in  Northern 
China,  who  was  so  incredibly  wanting  in  foresight 
as  to  leave  a  port,  which  in  character  was  almost  as 
much  a  British  port  as  Shanghai,  entirely  to  the 
tender  mercies  of  the  Russians.  Nor  can  we  under¬ 
stand  why  an  officer  should  be  sent  to  command  our 
fleet,  and  protect  our  interests  in  Northern  China, 
who  made  no  secret  of  the  fact  that  he  did  not 
consider  our  interests  in  that  part  of  the  world 
worth  protecting. 

I  have  gone  at  some  length  into  this  question, 
which  has  never  been  given  full  consideration  before, 
partly  perhaps  because  it  was  forgotten  at  a  time 
when  larger  issues  were  at  stake  ;  partly  also  because 
the  actual  facts  of  the  case  are  not  generally  known. 
It  may  seem  a  small  matter  to  some  people  whether 
the  Pigmy ,  a  very  small  gunboat,  arrived  at  New- 
chwang  a  day  or  two  sooner  or  a  day  or  two  later. 


241IHOW  RUSSIA  OCCUPIED  NEW-CHWANG 

Unfortunately  it  is  often  just  so  small  a  matter  that 
marks  a  new  epoch  in  history.  It  was  a  toss-up 
whether  the  British  or  the  Russian  men-of-war  left 
Port  Arthur  in  1898.  If  our  ships  had  remained 
Port  Arthur  would  not  now  have  been  a  Russian 
naval  base  or  Manchuria  a  Russian  province.  There 
was  another  occasion  when  the  Pigmy  did  arrive  in 
time.  That  was  when  it  took  Sir  Walter  Hillier  to 
Shan-hai-kwan  in  the  autumn  of  1900,  and  Sir 
Walter  Hillier  occupied  half  a  dozen  immense  forts 
with  some  eighteen  men  of  the  gallant  Pigmy ,  just 
a  few  hours  before  the  Russians,  marching  by  land, 
arrived  to  take  over  the  place.  It  had  been  arranged 
beforehand  that  the  occupation  should  be  inter¬ 
national,  and  we,  of  course,  carried  out  our  part  of 
the  bargain ;  but  it  is  nevertheless  a  fact  that 
the  Russians  were  marching  there  with  all  speed, 
and  had  privately  arranged  with  the  Chinese  general 
for  the  evacuation  of  the  place,  and  had  they  not 
been  forestalled  by  the  Pigmy ,  which,  having  no 
knowledge  of  the  proposed  evacuation,  ran  a  great 
risk  in  approaching  the  forts,  it  is  certain  that  Shan- 
hai-kwan  would  have  been  taken  and  held  by  the 
Russians  alone,  to  our  great  inconvenience. 

I  am  not  prepared  to  assert  that  the  ultimate 
course  of  events  would  have  been  altered  by  the 
flying  of  a  British  white  ensign  on  the  Liao  on 
August  4,  1900.  It  is  not  difficult  to  show,  as  I 
shall  do  later  on,  that,  commercially  speaking,  the 
Russians  will  always  have  New-chwang  in  their 
power  whether  they  administer  it  or  not.  But 
about  one  thing  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  had 


HOW  RUSSIA  OCCUPIED  NEW-CHWANG  25 


Admiral  Bruce  sent  the  Pigmy  to  New-chwang  when 
he  was  first  approached  on  the  subject  the  Russian 
flag  would  never  have  been  hoisted  in  the  Treaty 
Port  at  all.  And  it  is  important  that  we  should 
remember  this,  because  we  have  from  time  to 
time,  ever  since  August  of  1900,  raised  complaints 
about  the  Russian  occupation  of  New-chwang,  and 
we  have  apparently  felt  very  aggrieved  about  it. 
In  reality  we  have  very  little  to  complain  about.  It 
was  through  culpable  carelessness  on  the  part  of  our 
own  officer  in  command  that  the  Russians  were  able 
to  seize  New-chwang  to  begin  with,  and  it  was 
always  open  to  us  to  repair  that  mistake  by  insist¬ 
ing  upon  a  joint  occupation  immediately  afterwards. 

Consider  what  happened  at  Shanghai.  The 
mercantile  community  desired  military  protection. 
As  soon  as  we  offered  that  protection — which  we 
did  with  some  diffidence — Germany  and  France  and 
Japan  intimated  their  intention  of  taking  part  in 
the  defence  of  the  settlement ;  yet  at  Shanghai  our 
commercial  interests  were  paramount.  At  New- 
chwang,  where  Russia  had  practically  no  commer¬ 
cial  interests  at  all,  and  our  merchants  were  deeply 
involved,  we  allow  the  Russian  admiral  to  bombard 
the  town  on  his  own  account,  and  accept  the 
surrender  and  hoist  his  flag  over  the  Customs 
buildings  which  are  British  property,  without  a 
word  of  protest. 

It  was  not  astonishing  to  find  British  merchants 
in  New-chwang  in  a  far  from  amiable  frame  of  mind 
towards  the  British  Government.  They  naturally 
questioned  an  outsider  eagerly  as  to  what  was  going 


26  HOW  RUSSIA  OCCUPIED  NEW- CH WANG 

to  be  the  outcome  of  events.  For  my  own  part, 
having  just  come  from  Port  Arthur  and  Dalny 
and  having  seen  what  the  effect  of  the  Russian 
railway  might  become,  I  could  not  dream  for  a 
moment  that  the  Russians  would  ever  evacuate 
Manchuria,  and  seeing  that  they  were  making  an 
excellent  income  for  their  officials  out  of  the  native 
customs  at  New-chwang,  I  could  not  see  why  they 
should  retire  from  the  position  they  had  so  easily 
acquired  except  under  the  strongest  pressure. 

And  yet  the  minds  of  the  British  merchants  were 
not  at  all  made  up  on  this  subject,  and  I  can  only 
attribute  their  notions  to  the  exceedingly  misleading 
opinions  invariably  expressed  by  all  British  officials 
from  the  Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs 
down  to  the  acting  Consul  at  New-chwang.  One 
and  all  they  avowed  their  belief  that  Russia  would 
soon  evacuate  Manchuria,  and  in  June  of  1901  it 
was  roundly  asserted  that  the  Russians  would  leave 
New-chwang  before  the  winter  or  they  would  be 
forced  to  go. 

Now,  either  the  British  Government  was  blind  to 
the  facts  of  the  situation,  or  our  officials  were 
anxious  to  “  save  face,”  knowing  all  the  time  what 
was  inevitable.  In  either  case,  they  were  acting 
most  unfairly  to  their  fellow  subjects  in  New- 
chwang  who  were  led  to  believe  that  the  British 
Government  meant  business,  when  they  would  have 
been  much  better  off  coming  to  a  good  under¬ 
standing  with  the  Russian  Government.  An  atti¬ 
tude  of  hostility  to  Russian  rule  could  hardly  stand 
them  in  good  stead,  unless  their  own  Government 


HOW  RUSSIA  OCCUPIED  NEW-CHWANG  HI 


was  going  to  take  active  steps  to  get  rid  of  that 
rule. 

As  far  as  business  went  the  merchants  had  nothing 
much  to  complain  of.  The  Russians  being  dependent 
for  their  income  upon  the  native  customs,  which  in 
turn  are  derived  largely  from  the  river  traffic,  were 
compelled  to  protect  the  bean  boats  coming  down 
the  Liao,  and  such  was  the  congestion  of  produce  up 
country  that  when  the  boats  finally  did  come  down 
to  New-chwang  trade  became  very  brisk,  a  good 
revenue  was  collected,  and  even  the  Imperial 
Customs  netted  an  unexpectedly  large  sum  for  the 
first  six  months  of  the  year.  The  revenue  of  the 
Imperial  Customs  was  not  taken  by  the  Russian 
Administration  ;  that  would  have  been  rather  too 
large  an  order.  But  it  was,  and  still  is,  paid  in  to 
the  Russo- Chinese  Bank,  and  it  is  very  unlikely  that 
that  excellent  institution  will  ever  disgorge  a  particle 
of  the  amount  received  if  it  can  possibly  be  avoided. 
Out  of  the  local  taxation  usually  collected  by  the 
Chinese,  and  the  coasting  receipts  which  are  collected 
by  the  officials  of  the  Imperial  Customs,  and  are  now 
hypothecated  to  foreign  bondholders,  the  Russian 
Administrator,  M.  Ostroverkhoff,  and  his  assistants 
draw  much  larger  salaries  than  they  had  ever 
received  before  from  the  Russian  Government,  and 
prepared  incidentally  to  carry  out  some  much  needed 
public  works.  New-chwang  for  some  unknown 
reason  had  never  acquired  a  municipal  government 
of  its  own.  There  never  was  a  real  foreign  settle¬ 
ment  there,  as  at  Shanghai  or  Tientsin  or  Hankow, 
separate  from  the  Chinese  town  and  governed  by  its 


£8  HOW  RUSSIA  OCCUPIED  NEW-CHWANG 


own  council.  Consequently  public  works  were  con¬ 
spicuous  by  their  absence.  The  river  was  hardly 
bunded  at  all,  the  roads  were  shocking,  and  the 
lighting  of  the  streets  non-existent.  If  the  municipal 
spirit  had  developed  a  little  earlier,  and  there  had 
been  a  real  foreign  settlement  with  its  own  govern¬ 
ing  body  before  the  Boxer  trouble,  it  is  certain  that 
the  Russians  could  never  have  seized  the  reins  of 
government.  As  it  was,  the  movement  set  on  foot  in 
1901  to  establish  a  municipality  was  as  belated  as 
the  arrival  of  the  Pigmy ,  and  the  discussion  could 
only  have  an  academic  interest. 

The  public  works  promised  by  the  Administrator 
were  not  much  in  evidence  when  I  visited  New- 
chwang.  An  open  space  near  the  Customs  House 
had  been  furnished  with  a  band-stand  and  was 
dignified  with  the  title  of  the  public  park.  A  doctor 
of  the  Scotch  Presbyterian  Mission,  if  I  remember 
rightly,  had  been  appointed  sanitary  officer,  and 
some  attention  was  paid  to  the  cleaning  of  the  town. 
But  for  all  practical  purposes  it  did  not  seem  to 
matter  very  much  whether  New-chwang  was 
administered  by  a  Russian  Consul  or  a  Chinese 
Taotai.  I  called  once  on  M.  Ostroverkhoff,  and 
found  him  a  pleasant,  sleepy  sort  of  individual,  who 
had  started  for  Russia  on  leave  when  the  Boxer 
trouble  began,  but  came  rapidly  back  to  New- 
chwang  to  seize  the  opportunity  of  promotion. 
There  was  certainly  no  interference  with  trade,  and, 
indeed,  the  Russians  by  escorting  the  bean  boats 
down  the  river  did  the  one  thing  which  made  trade 
possible.  Meanwhile  the  British  community  went 


HOW  RUSSIA  OCCUPIED  NEW-CHWANG  29 


its  own  way.  There  were  dances  and  concerts,  one 
I  remember  at  which  Mr.  Alec  Marsh  sang  delight¬ 
fully,  and  the  usual  out-door  amusements  such  as 
riding  and  tennis  and  shooting.  We  w^ere  already 
in  midsummer,  but  the  heat  was  far  from  being  over¬ 
powering  and  the  rains  had  not  yet  begun.  Alto¬ 
gether,  though  political  warfare  might  rage  about  the 
occupation  of  New-chwang.  the  actual  scene  of  the 
conflict  was  as  peaceful  and  pleasant  a  place  as  one 
need  wish  to  see  in  a  Chinese  summer. 


CHAPTER  III 


SOUTHERN  MANCHURIA 

The  question  of  travelling  in  Manchuria,  North  of 
New-chwang,  was,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  rather  a 
delicate  one.  I  happened  to  arrive  at  the  Treaty 
Port  at  the  very  moment  when  Colonel  Powell,  who 
had  been  our  representative  upon  Waldersee’s  staff, 
returned  from  an  abortive  attempt  to  reach  Siberia 
by  way  of  Kharbin  and  the  Manchurian  Railway. 
The  conduct  of  the  Russian  authorities  in  dealing 
with  him  was  quite  inexplicable,  except  on  the 
grounds  that  you  must  not  apply  the  same  rules 
to  Russians  as  to  other  civilised  peoples.  The 
British  colonel  had  started  from  New-chwang  with 
the  full  permission  and  assistance  of  Admiral  Alex- 
eieff,  who  was  apparently  the  representative  of  the 
Tsar’s  Government  as  far  as  Manchuria  was  con¬ 
cerned.  When  he  reached  Tieh-ling,  which  is  a 
little  north  of  Mukden,  he  was  informed  that  he 
could  not  go  a  step  farther  without  permission  from 
the  Governor- General  of  Eastern  Siberia,  who  held 
jurisdiction  of  all  territory  North  of  Tieh-ling.  This 
was  a  new  dispensation,  which  must  have  been 
invented  upon  the  spur  of  the  moment,  because  no 
hint  of  it  had  been  heard  before,  and  as  far  as  I 
could  observe  later  on,  there  was  no  particular 


SOUTHERN  MANCHURIA 


31 


boundary  line  at  Tieh-ling.  But  railhead  happened 
for  the  moment  to  be  at  that  town,  and  if  Colonel 
Powell  had  been  allowed  to  proceed  by  road  beyond 
that  point  he  might  possibly  have  gained  a  better 
knowledge  of  what  was  going  on  in  the  country  than 
he  could  from  a  train  window.  Whatever  may  have 
been  the  reason,  he  was  told  that  he  could  not  go  a 
yard  farther  without  special  permission  from  the 
Governor- General  of  Eastern  Siberia,  which  per¬ 
mission  apparently  would  take  months  to  procure  ; 
so  he  had  no  option  but  to  return  the  way  he  had 
come.  While  he  was  waiting  in  Tieh-ling  for 
answers  to  his  telegrams  he  was  practically  under 
arrest,  and  in  a  general  way  treated  in  a  manner 
hardly  befitting  his  rank  and  nationality.  Techni¬ 
cally  speaking,  he  required  nothing  but  a  Chinese 
passport  to  travel  in  Manchuria,  and  no  Russian 
permission  was  necessary  except  for  the  use  of  the 
railway.  I  do  not  know  whether  the  British 
Government  took  any  official  notice  of  the  conduct 
of  the  Russians  in  this  matter,  but  as  nothing  more 
was  heard  about  it,  it  may  be  presumed  that  we 
pocketed  the  insult.  It  is  only  fair  to  say  that  a 
German  officer  was  also  stopped  about  the  same 
time,  but  I  do  not  know  whether  the  case  was  so 
flagrant,  because  in  Colonel  Powell’s  case  he  was 
travelling  with  the  full  cognisance  and  permission 
of  Admiral  Alexeieff,  who,  as  far  as  any  one  could 
discover,  had  ample  powers  to  give  that  permission. 

A  newspaper  correspondent  had  previously  had  a 
somewhat  similar  experience.  He  had  started  from 
Peking  armed  with  the  best  of  recommendations 


SOUTHERN  MANCHURIA 


m 

from  the  Russian  Minister,  and  was  received  with 
great  cordiality  by  the  Admiral  at  Port  Arthur. 
No  sort  of  obstacle  was  placed  in  the  way  of  his 
travelling  through  the  length  and  breadth  of  Man¬ 
churia,  only  it  would  be  necessary  to  have  the 
permits  countersigned  by  the  military  commissioner, 
whoever  he  might  be,  at  Mukden.  If  he  would  go 
on  to  Mukden  he  would  find  everything  waiting 
for  him,  and  he  would  have  no  further  difficulty. 
The  correspondent  followed  out  his  instructions, 
took  the  train  for  Mukden,  and,  arriving  there  after 
a  somewhat  protracted  journey,  found  all  his  papers 
in  order  awaiting  him  at  the  bank.  But,  unfor¬ 
tunately,  he  had  been  so  long  on  the  road  that  the 
permits  were  just  out  of  date  by  the  time  he  got 
them  and  no  longer  available. 

“  Of  course,”  said  the  Russian  official  who  told  me 
the  story,  “  we  never  had  the  slightest  intention  of 
allowing  him  to  travel,  and  that  was  the  easiest  way 
of  refusing  him.” 

For  Russian  authorities  perhaps  it  was  the  easiest 
way.  But  no  one  appreciates  a  practical  joke  very 
much  when  it  is  played  by  the  powers  that  be,  who 
offer  no  scope  for  retaliation. 

With  such  examples  ahead  of  me,  I  knew  very 
well  that  my  Shanghai  passport,  though  stamped 
with  the  seal  of  the  Russian  Consul,  would  stand 
me  in  no  stead.  Nor  did  I  expect  much  assistance 
from  the  authorities  on  the  spot.  As  a  matter  of 
form  I  approached  M.  Ostroverkhoff,  who  told  me  that 
I  would  have  to  get  permission  first  from  Admiral 
Alexeieff,  who  was  away  cruising  somewhere ;  and 


FRONTIER  GUARD  ON  THE  MANCHURIAN  RAILWAY 


SOUTHERN  MANCHURIA 


33 


secondly,  from  the  Governor- General  of  Eastern 
Siberia,  who  must  be  communicated  with  by  letter, 
and  might  be  expected  to  answer  the  communication 
any  time  within  two  months.  He  did  not  seriously 
advise  my  making  so  useless  an  application,  but 
suggested  instead  that  I  might  join  one  of  the  bank 
officials  who  was  going  North  in  the  course  of  the 
next  few  days  and  might  take  me  with  him.  I 
thanked  him  for  the  suggestion,  which  I  determined 
to  act  upon,  all  the  more  so  because  I  had  already 
received  an  invitation  from  the  official  in  question. 
In  this  way  I  might  get  as  far  as  Kirin,  and  possibly 
Kharbin,  beyond  which  I  had  no  particular  desire  to 
go.  The  worst  that  could  happen  to  me  was  that  I 
should  be  stopped  and  sent  back  to  the  Port.  My 
companion  could  hardly  suffer,  as  he  had  no  instruc¬ 
tions  whatsoever  debarring  him  from  taking  a  guest 
with  him  to  Kirin,  and  beyond  that  he  accepted  no 
responsibility  on  my  behalf.  In  answer  to  any 
awkward  questions  I  could  always  plead  ignorance 
of  the  Russian  language,  and  such  questions  were 
not  likely  to  be  asked  as  long  as  I  was  in  such  good 
company.  Moreover,  the  material  comforts  of  travel 
were  greatly  increased  by  the  fact  that  one  passenger 
car  and  two  covered  waggons  were  put  at  the  dis¬ 
posal  of  my  friend,  who  had  been  through  the  Boxer 
trouble  of  the  previous  year,  and  was  now  carrying  a 
new  set  of  penates  with  him  to  his  ruined  house  in 
the  interior.  In  our  passenger  car  (fourth  class)  we 
were  able  to  camp  out  almost  luxuriously  during  a 
journey  of  many  days ;  while  in  the  waggons  we 
carried  a  complete  set  of  household  furniture,  pro- 

c 


34 


SOUTHERN  MANCHURIA 


visions  for  a  year,  six  servants,  one  groom,  and  an 
English  cob. 

The  first  stage  of  our  journey  was  not  very  long. 
It  brought  us  to  Ta-sia-chiao,  the  junction  on  the 
main  line,  about  fourteen  miles  from  New-chwang, 
and  there  our  troubles  began.  The  rivers  were  in 
flood,  the  temporary  bridges  were  under  water,  and 
we  were  condemned  to  wait  twenty-four  hours  in  a 
siding  until  the  Port  Arthur  train  at  length  arrived 
just  a  day  behind  time.  When  we  finally  started 
North  we  found  that  the  line  was  practically  un¬ 
ballasted  beyond  Ta-sia-chiao,  and  the  bridges  were 
all  temporary  and  of  the  most  flimsy  structure. 
The  loose  sleepers  squelched  in  the  mud  as  the  train 
passed  over  them,  and  the  bridges,  mere  piles  of  rails 
or  sleepers  with  naked  rails  for  spans,  groaned  under 
our  weight,  while  in  some  cases  the  rails  themselves 
were  under  water.  Over  such  a  line  we  travelled 
by  slow  stages — not  too  slow,  however,  for  our 
nerves — to  Liao-yang,  covering  the  distance  of  forty 
odd  miles  in  a  night  and  a  day.  There  the  station- 
master  informed  us  that  a  large  bridge  was  down 
between  Liao-yang  and  Mukden,  and  that  all  further 
progress  was  stopped  for  at  least  five  days.  He 
was  by  no  means  an  obliging  official,  for  he  did  his 
best  to  send  us  back  to  Port  Arthur  in  the  middle 
of  the  night,  a  project  which  was  only  frustrated  by 
my  friend,  who  was  providentially  awakened  by  the 
uncoupling  of  the  carriages.  Out  of  revenge  the 
station-master  informed  us  next  morning  that  we 
should  be  detained,  as  far  as  he  could  see,  for  seven 
days  in  Liao-yang.  In  the  circumstances  we  deemed 


SOUTHERN  MANCHURIA 


85 


it  wiser  to  leave  the  swamp,  which  then  did  duty 
as  a  railway  station,  and  we  went  to  spend  a  few 
days  with  Mr.  Douglas,  of  the  Presbyterian  mission, 
at  his  house  inside  the  walls. 

Liao-yang  is  not  more  interesting  in  itself  than 
any  other  walled  city  of  Northern  China.  The 
streets  are,  however,  rather  wider  and  the  smells 
become  less  obnoxious  as  one  goes  farther  north. 
The  Russians,  who  had  then  a  garrison  in  the  place 
of  over  two  thousand  men,  had  improved  its  aspect 
considerably  in  the  matter  of  cleanliness,  and  had 
enforced  the  lighting  of  the  streets  at  night.  We 
went  over  the  ruins  of  what  was  once  a  delightful 
missionary  quarter,  and  wondered,  as  one  often 
wonders  in  China,  how  the  missionaries  can  have 
the  heart  to  begin  again  so  often  the  work  which  is 
constantly  being  destroyed,  both  literally  and  meta¬ 
phorically,  to  its  foundations.  Mr.  Douglas  pointed 
out  to  us,  however,  that  the  recent  Boxer  outbreak 
had  its  redeeming  features.  The  Presbyterian  mis¬ 
sion  has  had  one  of  its  main  branches  at  Liao-yang 
for  ten  years,  and  in  the  whole  district,  which  is  far 
larger  than  Yorkshire,  there  were  at  the  time  of  the 
rising  eleven  hundred  genuine  converts,  not,  perhaps, 
a  very  large  number,  but  one  which  the  chief  pastor 
appeared  to  regard  with  almost  pathetic  hopefulness. 
Of  these  he  believed  that  not  more  than  two  hundred 
had  abandoned  the  new  faith  under  the  pressure  of 
misfortune ;  and  this,  at  least,  is  a  comforting  fact 
when  it  is  considered  that  Liao-yang  was  the  very 
centre  of  Boxerdom  in  Manchuria,  and  that  there  is 
not  one  of  those  Christian  converts  who  had  not 


36 


SOUTHERN  MANCHURIA 


risked  his  property  and  his  life  during  the  Boxer 
rising. 

It  is  so  common  to  sneer  at  the  work  of  the 
missionaries  in  China  that  the  world  as  a  whole  is 
likely  to  lose  sight  of  what  should  be  an  intensely 
interesting  chapter  in  the  history  of  Christianity. 
Whatever  may  be  the  final  issue  of  the  long  fight 
which  is  being  waged  by  the  ministers  of  the  various 
churches  in  China,  no  one  can  help  admitting  that 
the  events  of  the  year  1900  testified  strongly  to 
the  real  hold  which  Christianity  had  taken  on  its 
adherents,  nor  is  it  at  all  proved  that  the  Chinese 
character  is  not  genuinely  susceptible  to  its  doctrines. 
In  connection  with  this  subject  a  story  which  I  was 
told  by  an  eye  witness  among  the  Russian  engineers 
on  the  railway  is  worth  repeating.  A  Cossack,  in  a 
fit  of  drunkenness,  had  shot  a  Chinaman,  and  it  was 
necessary  to  bring  several  of  the  men  to  the  bedside 
of  the  dying  victim  for  purposes  of  identification. 
The  Chinaman,  however,  refused  absolutely  to  single 
out  the  guilty  man,  saying  :  “  Why  should  he  be 
killed,  since  I  must  die  in  any  case  ?  ”  Then  they 
explained  to  him  that  the  man  would  only  be  severely 
punished,  to  which  the  Chinaman  responded  that 
since  he  forgave  the  culprit  there  was  no  reason  why 
fie  should  suffer.  Then  the  theory  of  punishment 
was  induced  as  an  argument — the  Cossack  must  be 
punished  in  order  that  he  might  not  repeat  the 
offence.  “  But,”  said  the  Chinaman,  “  he  will  never 
do  it  again  when  he  knows  that  I  forgive  him.” 
And  there  the  matter  ended. 

It  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  record  here  my  own 


SOUTHERN  MANCHURIA 


37 


experience  of  the  missionary  movement  in  China. 
In  the  space  of  fourteen  months  I  travelled  over 
a  large  part  of  Northern  and  Central  China  and 
met  a  correspondingly  large  number  of  missionaries 
— English,  American,  and  Homan  Catholic — and 
I  can  truly  say  that  I  never  knew  one  who  was  not 
sincerely  and  effectively  working  for  the  good  of 
China.  There  are  far  too  many  warring  sects  in 
the  Christian  world,  and  these  sects  are  represented 
in  China  as  elsewhere,  but  I  never  was  able  to 
discover  that  denominational  jealousy  was  interfering 
with  the  work  of  education  and  enlightenment 
carried  on  by  individual  missions.  The  one  fair 
charge  against  the  missionary  movement  in  China 
is  that  attempts  have  been  made  to  gain  a  political 
footing  under  the  cloak  of  evangelism.  This  is  a 
charge  that  can  never  be  brought  home  to  the  Pro¬ 
testant  organisations  of  England  or  America.  On 
the  contrary,  the  two  Anglo-Saxon  Governments 
have  availed  themselves  far  too  little  of  the  splendid 
sources  of  information  furnished  by  the  Protestant 
missions  in  China.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that 
the  siege  of  the  Peking  Legations  might  never  have 
taken  place  if  the  warnings  of  the  missionaries  had 
been  listened  to. 

In  Manchuria  I  was  particularly  struck  with  the 
sincerity  and  force  of  the  Irish  and  Scotch  members 
of  the  Presbyterian  Mission.  It  seemed  to  me  that 
they  went  about  their  work  in  a  more  practical 
way  than  any  of  their  colleagues  in  other  parts  of 
China.  They  paid  more  attention  to  education  and 
hygiene  than  to  the  teaching  of  religious  dogma, 


38 


SOUTHERN  MANCHURIA 


and  their  hospitals,  for  the  most  part  destroyed  by 
the  Boxers,  had  been  of  greatest  service  in  healing 
sickness  and  saving  life.  They  were,  moreover,  the 
only  foreigners  in  Manchuria,  Japanese  agents  always 
excepted,  who  really  knew  the  people,  spoke  their 
language,  and  appreciated  their  habits  of  thought. 
The  result  was  that  the  Russians,  who  particularly 
dislike  making  use  of  British  subjects  in  the  East, 
could  do  nothing  in  Manchuria  without  the  help  of 
our  missionaries.  To  begin  with,  no  Russian  that  I 
came  across  could  balk  Chinese  with  any  fluency, 
and  the  native  Chinese  interpreters  were  not  the 
sort  of  men  who  could  be  employed  at  official  meet¬ 
ings.  So  it  came  about  that  for  interviews  of 
importance  between  Russian  officers  and  Chinese 
magistrates  the  aid  of  our  missionaries  had  to  be 
invoked,  and  the  English  language  was  the  common 
factor  in  the  conversation.  The  rather  curious 
result  of  this  arrangement  was  that  the  Chinese 
in  Manchuria  used  to  look  upon  English  as  the 
“  guanhwa  ”  or  polite  language  of  the  foreign  devil 
whereas  Russian  was  merely  the  “  coolie  talk.” 

In  this  way  the  Presbyterian  missionaries  were 
able  to  act  on  many  occasions  as  interceders  on  behalf 
of  the  Chinese.  It  is  an  old  story  how  Dr.  West- 
water  saved  Liao-yang,  but  one  which  the  Chinese 
of  that  city  will  not  readily  forget.  When  the 
Russian  Expedition  was  marching  to  Mukden  after 
the  Boxer  rising,  it  was  necessary,  of  course,  to 
occupy  the  important  town  of  Liao-yang  on  the 
way  No  opposition  was  offered  outside  the  town, 
and  the  general  was  about  to  enter  the  gates  with 


SOUTHERN  MANCHURIA 


39 


his  staff  when  the  Chinese  inside  Liao-yang  opened 
fire.  The  staff  immediately  retired,  the  troops  were 
formed  for  attack,  and  the  artillery  was  about  to 
begin  the  bombardment,  when  Dr.  Westwater,  who 
had  formerly  been  resident  in  Liao-yang  and  was 
accompanying  the  Russian  Expedition  as  interpreter 
and  adviser,  volunteered  to  enter  the  town  and 
secure  the  surrender  without  loss  of  life.  He  made 
a  strong  stipulation  at  the  same  time  that  there 
should  be  no  looting  or  murdering  on  the  part 
of  the  Russian  troops.  The  general  agreed,  and 
Dr.  Westwater  rode  through  the  gates  alone  and 
unarmed.  For  some  time  he  traversed  empty  streets, 
the  Chinese  being  for  the  most  part  lying  in  wait 
under  cover,  until  at  length  he  came  upon  a  native 
convert,  who  knew  him  and  conducted  him  to  the 
place  where  the  leaders  of  the  merchant  guilds 
were  holding  a  conference.  There  the  missionary 
addressed  the  meeting,  demonstrated  the  absurdity 
of  resistance,  and  staked  his  honour  upon  the  safety 
of  life  and  property  if  they  would  surrender  the 
town.  The  Chinese  were  soon  won  over,  the  town 
was  occupied  by  the  Russians,  and  the  Russian 
general  amply  fulfilled  his  part  of  the  bargain. 
There  was  no  looting  or  killing,  and  for  many  days 
every  patrol  had  to  be  accompanied  by  a  commis¬ 
sioned  officer,  whose  duty  it  was  to  see  that  no 
breach  of  order  was  committed.  Thus  Liao-yang 
was  preserved  from  the  terrible  fate  which  befel  so 
many  towns  and  villages  at  the  hands  of  the  Rus¬ 
sian  troops  by  the  bravery  and  readiness  of  the 
missionary. 


40 


SOUTHERN  MANCHURIA 


In  other  ways  also  these  men  who  are  in  close 
contact  with  the  natives  are  in  a  position  to  gain  a 
knowledge  of  the  undercurrent  of  affairs  in  China 
which  the  invader  could  never  obtain.  Mr.  Douglas, 
when  we  were  at  Liao-yang,  had  much  valuable 
information  regarding  a  new  secret  society,  which 
in  the  last  few  months  had  grown  to  great  propor¬ 
tions  in  Southern  Manchuria.  Nominally  the  society, 
called  the  Tsai-li-hwei,  was  a  Buddhist  organisation 
of  a  harmless  character,  its  chief  avowed  object 
being  the  worship  of  Kwang  Yin,  a  female  incar¬ 
nation  of  Buddha,  whose  temple  is  the  one  thing 
picturesque  in  Liao-yang.  On  being  admitted  to 
this  society  the  neophyte  was  given  five  words  for 
the  good  of  his  soul,  which  he  must  repeat  to 
nobody,  not  even  father,  or  mother,  or  grandfather, 
or  grandmother.  He  did  not  always  comply  with 
the  injunction,  and  there  was  no  difficulty  in  dis¬ 
covering  that  the  five  words  were  the  equivalent  of 
“  Kwang-yin  Great  Goddess  of  Mercy  ” — innocent 
words  enough.  But  there  was  an  inner  ring  in  the 
society  to  which  only  proved  men  were  admitted, 
and  they  too  had  five  words  to  remember,  which, 
being  translated,  ran  something  like  this  :  “  Store 
grain,  collect  forage ;  revolt.”  In  other  words,  the 
society  was  simply  a  revolutionary  organisation  of 
the  approved  type,  the  leaders  of  which  have, 
possibly,  genuine  propaganda  of  their  own,  but  the 
rank  and  file  of  which,  consisting  of  the  disorderly 
elements  ever  present  in  China,  are  bent  solely  on 
fire  and  pillage. 

Mr.  Douglas  had  no  doubt  that  the  movement,  if 


SOUTHERN  MANCHURIA 


41 


such  it  could  be  called,  was  widespread,  but  was 
never  likely  to  come  to  a  head  as  long  as  the  Russian 
troops  were  present  in  great  force.  It  served,  how¬ 
ever,  as  an  indication  of  that  restless  spirit  prevalent 
everywhere  in  China,  which  is  dangerous  only  when 
the  outword  semblance  of  foreign  power  is  removed. 

Liao-yang  itself  seemed  singularly  peaceful ; 
perhaps  because  the  Chinese  had  become  so 
accustomed  to  foreign  faces  that  they  hardly  used 
to  take  the  trouble  to  look  up  at  the  foreigner  as 
he  passed  along  the  street,  which  in  itself  was  a 
great  comfort  to  the  visitor.  In  the  afternoon  after 
our  arrival  we  went  over  to  see  a  missionary  doctor 
who  had  met  with  an  accident  on  the  railway,  and 
was  lying  at  the  house  of  the  chief  Russian  engi¬ 
neer.  After  a  long  day’s  work  at  the  Russian  coal 
mines  near  Yen-tai  he  was  returning  after  dark  by 
trolley,  in  haste  to  get  back  to  Liao-yang  where 
he  had  some  critical  cases.  The  Russian  railway 
employee  had  used  the  money,  which  should  have 
have  been  spent  on  his  lamp,  in  buying  vodka,  and 
as  they  came  down  an  incline  at  a  good  pace  they 
ran  full  tilt  into  another  trolley  loaded  with  rails  at 
the  bottom,  which  was  also  innocent  of  lights.  The 
doctor  had  his  thigh  cruelly  lacerated,  being  spitted, 
as  it  were,  on  the  end  of  a  rail,  yet,  after  travelling 
the  remaining  twenty  versts  on  the  trolley  side  by 
side  with  a  wounded  Chinaman,  he  was  still  able  to 
sew  up  and  dress  his  own  wound  when  he  reached 
the  engineer’s  house.  Needless  to  say  the  Russians 
could  not  do  enough  for  him,  for  they  have  had 
practical  experience  in  his  case,  as  in  that  of  Dr. 


42 


SOUTHERN  MANCHURIA 


W estwater,  of  the  value  of  missionary  doctors,  with¬ 
out  whose  assistance  they  would  have  been  in  rather 
a  sorry  plight.  The  engineer,  indeed,  who  was 
attending  the  wounded  doctor  when  we  paid  our 
visit,  went  so  far  as  to  congratulate  me  upon  being 
a  Scotsman,  because  Scotland  had  produced  two 
men  whom  he  admired  above  all  others,  Sir  Walter 
Scott  and  Dr.  Westwater. 

While  we  were  discussing  the  accident  a  train 
passed  the  house  on  its  way  north,  and  we  found 
that,  trusting  too  much  to  the  word  of  the  station- 
master,  we  had  been  left  behind.  Fortunately 
our  waggons  had  remained  with  us,  so  that  we 
only  suffered  twelve  hours’  unnecessary  delay — a 
small  matter  on  the  Chinese  Eastern  Railway.  It 
was,  however,  typical  of  the  Russian  station-master 
that  at  the  very  moment  when  he  was  telling  us 
that  we  could  not  possibly  proceed  for  seven  days, 
he  had  actually  a  telegram  in  his  office  informing 
him  that  the  big  wash-out  had  been  repaired  and 
that  the  way  to  Mukden  was  clear.  He  had  no 
possible  object  in  misleading  us ;  he  merely  had 
the  usual  Muscovite  contempt  for  figures.  Later 
on  a  Russian  paymaster  of  high  rank  (a  colonel,  I 
think)  informed  us  solemnly  that  the  Trans-Siberian 
Railway  first  and  last  would  cost  at  least  two 
hundred  million  roubles  (^20,000,000) !  And  it 
was  a  station-master,  farther  up  the  line,  who  ad¬ 
vised  us  to  go  no  further  by  rail  as  there  was  a 
gradient  of  twenty-five  in  a  hundred  not  far  from 
his  station  which  was  very  dangerous.  Dangerous 
seemed  hardly  the  word  for  it?  so  we  took  to  carts 
at  once. 


SOUTHERN  MANCHURIA 


43 


A  description  of  the  railway  in  its  half-finished 
state  must  be  left  to  the  next  chapter.  We  actually 
reached  the  station  for  Mukden,  which  is  twenty 
versts  from  the  line,  on  the  morning  of  the  third 
day  from  Yin-kow,  and  proceeding  thence  with 
great  dispatch  we  were  in  Tieh-ling  on  the  same 
evening,  having  covered  a  distance  approximately 
equivalent  to  that  between  London  and  Crewe,  in 
the  respectable  time  of  seventy-two  hours.  Here, 
as  far  as  I  was  concerned,  came  the  critical  point 
of  my  journey,  for  it  was  here  that  my  predeces¬ 
sors  had  been  turned  back  ;  but  no  questions  being 
asked  we  dined  at  the  newly -opened  agency  of  the 
Russo-Chinese  Bank,  and  passed  into  the  jurisdic¬ 
tion  of  the  Governor -General  of  Eastern  Siberia  next 
morning  by  the  simple  process  of  taking  French 
leave. 


CHAPTER  IV 


THE  MANCHURIAN  RAILWAY 

From  Tieh-ling  northward  we  found  the  railway  in 
a  more  and  more  unfinished  state,  so  that  progress 
was  uncertain  and  occasionally  dangerous.  The  line 
from  the  New-chwang  junction  was  still  unballasted, 
but  up  to  Tieh-ling  traffic  had  more  or  less  settled  the 
embankments  to  a  normal  consistency.  To  the 
north  of  that  town,  the  newly-laid  sleepers  and 
rails  sank  almost  visibly  into  the  soft  embankments 
under  the  weight  of  a  single  locomotive,  and  the 
whole  line  looked  as  if  it  were  worked  upon  the 
switchback  principle.  Beyond  Kai-yuan,  a  large 
town  thirty  versts  north  of  Tieh-ling,  no  passengers, 
I  believe,  had  ever  travelled  before  we  made  our 
appearance ;  in  fact,  the  rails  coming  south  from 
Kharbin  and  north  from  Port  Arthur  were  only 
joined  at  a  point  thirty  versts  south  of  Kuan- 
cheng-tze  on  the  day  on  which  we  left  Tieh-ling, 
though  according  to  Russian  semi-official  reports 
there  had  been  through  communication  between 
Kharbin  and  Port  Arthur  at  least  three  months 
before.  Even  as  it  was,  to  lay  down  rails  and  to 
run  trains  over  them  were  two  entirely  different 
matters.  There  was,  indeed,  no  engine  at  Kai-yuan 
to  take  us  on,  but  that  difficulty  was  overcome  by 


THE  MANCHURIAN  RAILWAY 


45 


the  arrival  of  the  engineer  of  the  section,  whose 
good  offices  secured  us  a  locomotive  as  far  as  his 
stopping-place  at  Hsi-ping-kai,  ninety  versts  to  the 
north,  where  we  dined  with  him  and  spent  the  night. 
It  was  a  fortunate  chance  for  me  in  more  ways  than 
one,  as  I  met  this  same  engineer  on  my  return 
journey  and  escaped  arrest  mainly  through  his  good 
offices. 

By  this  time  our  goal,  which,  for  the  present,  was 
Kuan-cheng-tze,  seemed  to  be  really  in  sight,  for  we 
only  had  a  hundred  and  twenty  versts  to  go  and  we 
had  kept  our  engine.  But  our  difficulties  were  not 
yet  over.  Starting  off  at  about  five  o’clock  in  the 
morning  with  only  our  private  car  and  waggons  and 
one  extra  van  full  of  nondescript  employees  of  the 
railway  who  had  begged  the  use  of  our  engine,  we 
were  rudely  disturbed  in  our  beds  by  a  terrific 
bumping  and  jolting,  and  woke  to  find  our  car 
not  only  derailed  but  hanging  on  the  very  edge  of 
the  embankment.  The  engine  shrieked  violently, 
coolies  arrived  on  the  scene,  and  in  two  hours  the 
train  was  put  to  rights  and  started  hopefully 
once  more.  In  five  minutes  our  car  was  derailed 
again,  and  this  time,  being  on  the  watch  for  an 
accident,  most  of  us  were  out  and  rolling  down  the 
embankment  before  the  engine  pulled  up.  Fortu¬ 
nately  our  car  had  held  to  its  couplings  this  time, 
otherwise  it  must  have  toppled  over  the  edge  and 
crushed  a  few  of  the  passengers  as  they  rolled  down 
the  incline.  As  it  was,  the  axles  and  woodwork 
were  so  much  damaged  that  we  were  forced  to  take 
it  slowly  back  to  the  station  from  which  we  had 


46 


THE  MANCHURIAN  RAILWAY 


started  in  the  morning,  and  leave  it  there  together 
with  our  Russian  friends,  who  declined  to  use  the 
railway  any  longer.  Thereafter  we  travelled  with 
less  state  but  greater  security,  beside  the  cob  and 
our  Chinese  servants,  in  one  of  our  luggage  waggons, 
which  being  of  heavier  build  were  not  so  likely  to 
jump  the  rails. 

Sixty  versts  further  on  we  came  to  Kun-da-lin, 
where  the  station-master  took  away  our  engine  and 
told  us  that  the  line  was  very  dangerous  ahead, 
with  one  gradient  of  twenty -five  in  a  hundred. 
Not  wishing  to  descend  at  once  into  the  bowels  of 
the  earth,  we  abandoned  the  heavy  baggage  and 
took  what  we  could  on  four  carts  and  travelled  for 
a  day  over  abominable  roads  to  the  next  station, 
where  the  engineer  of  the  section  entertained  us 
with  true  Russian  hospitality,  and  took  us  into 
Kuan-cheng-tze  on  his  construction  train  next 
morning,  our  carts  following  more  slowly  by  road. 
From  the  station  we  had  to  walk  three  miles  in  the 
hot  sun  to  the  city,  having  been  reduced  by  this 
time  to  the  condition  of  tramps,  without  luggage  or 
visible  means  of  subsistence. 

A  week  or  two  later  I  travelled  over  the  portion 
of  the  line  between  Kharbin  and  Kuan-cheng-tze 
on  my  return  journey,  so  that  I  saw  the  whole  of 
the  Kharbin-Port  Arthur  branch,  the  most  im¬ 
portant  section  of  the  Manchurian  Railway,  at  a 
time  when  foreigners  were  not  supposed  to  travel 
in  the  country  at  all.  It  may  be  as  well,  there¬ 
fore,  at  this  stage  to  devote  a  few  pages  to  an 
account  of  the  railway  which  has  played  so 


THE  MANCHURIAN  RAILWAY 


47 


important  a  part  in  the  recent  history  of  Northern 
China. 

It  is  interesting  to  look  back  upon  that  journey 
which  we  undertook  as  recently  as  July  1901,  and 
contrast  the  condition  of  the  line  at  that  time  with 
the  entirely  altered  state  of  things  in  1903.  We 
were  then  just  eight  and  a  half  days  in  covering 
the  distance  between  New-chwang  and  Kuan-cheng- 
tze.  Not  a  single  bridge  or  culvert  was  finished  on 
that  part  of  the  road,  so  that  every  creek  and  river 
had  to  be  crossed  by  a  temporary  structure,  entailing 
a  deviation  from  the  true  line  in  each  case.  We 
were  unfortunate  enough  to  start  for  the  North  just 
after  the  heavy  rains  had  begun,  when  not  only 
were  many  of  the  temporary  bridges  entirely  washed 
away  in  front  of  us,  but  the  embankment  being- 
made  of  the  loess  soil  of  Northern  China  was  every¬ 
where  in  a  soft  and  unstable  condition.  I  do  not 
think  that  our  engineers  would  ever  have  allowed 
the  temporary  work  to  be  so  lightly  constructed. 
Even  under  the  stress  of  dire  military  need  our 
engineers  in  South  Africa  never  allowed  trains 
to  pass  over  such  flimsy  structures  as  those  which 
then  spanned  the  rivers  in  Manchuria.  But,  after 
all,  that  is  a  matter  which  concerns  only  the  engineers 
and  employees  of  the  railway,  and  has  nothing  to 
do  with  the  permanent  value  of  the  line.  The 
Russians  are  more  careless  of  human  life  than  we  are, 
and  if  an  outsider  likes  to  travel  on  a  railway  which 
is  in  process  of  construction,  paying  not  a  farthing 
for  the  privilege,  he  must  be  prepared  to  take  the 
consequences.  Only  one  was  rather  sorry  for  the 


48 


THE  MANCHURIAN  RAILWAY 


Chinese  labourers  who  were  killed  in  considerable 
numbers  by  the  overturning  of  waggons.  I  re¬ 
member  one  train  which  arrived  a  little  later  on  at 
the  Sungari  bridge  after  having  had  no  less  than 
eight  derailments  between  Mukden  and  its  destina¬ 
tion.  It  is  manifestly  absurd  to  criticise  a  railway 
in  such  a  state,  and  yet  that  is  what  was  constantly 
done  with  regard  to  the  Siberian  and  Manchurian 
railways,  though  the  building  of  the  latter  has 
been,  as  I  shall  show,  a  wonderful  achievement  in 
the  way  of  railway  building. 

It  must  be  remembered,  too,  that  the  railway 
had  a  strategic  as  well  as  a  commercial  value,  and 
that  in  the  year  1901  it  was  most  important  to 
get  the  rails  actually  laid  between  Kharbin  and 
Port  Arthur  at  all  costs.  During  that  year  Russia 
was  to  a  certain  extent  defying  the  rest  of  the  world, 
and  especially  Japan,  by  her  dealings  with  China  in 
regard  to  Manchuria.  England,  the  most  interested 
party  as  far  as  the  trade  of  Manchuria  went,  was 
too  much  occupied  with  the  South  African  War  to 
take  a  keen  interest  in  the  future  of  the  three 
eastern  provinces.  But  Japan  knew  very  well 
that  every  day  was  strengthening  the  position  of 
Russia,  and  that  Manchuria  was  lost  to  her  as  a 
field  of  exploitation  if  she  did  not  strike  an  imme¬ 
diate  blow.  In  such  circumstances  it  was  absolutely 
essential  for  Russia  to  secure  her  communications 
by  land  with  Port  Arthur.  Experience  in  South 
Africa  has  proved  to  us  that  even  a  single  line  of 
railway  subject  to  constant  interruption  and  local 
destruction  is  infinitely  better  than  no  railway  at 


THE  AUTHOR’S  TRAIN  DERAILED 


THE  MANCHURIAN  RAILWAY 


49 


all.  And  so,  when  the  rails  were  actually  joined 
just  south  of  Kuan-cheng-tze  on  July  18,  1901,  the 
Russians  advanced  one  great  step  in  their  peaceful 
campaign  against  J apan.  How  vulnerable  their  posi¬ 
tion  was  in  Manchuria  during  the  preceding  twelve 
months  while  the  railway  was  advancing  could  only 
be  appreciated  by  a  journey  over  the  line  in  its  then 
incomplete  condition  ;  and  one  cannot  help  admiring 
the  boldness  of  Russia  in  defying  the  world,  when  a 
sudden  war  might  have  found  her  in  an  untenable 
position,  and  might  have  thrown  her  back  in  her 
Eastern  policy  at  least  half  a  century.  On  the 
other  hand,  one  is  more  and  more  convinced  that 
what  used  to  be  talked  about  a  short  time  ago  as 
the  inevitable  war  between  Russia  and  Japan  is 
destined  to  end  in  smoke,  since  the  Japanese  have 
already  lost  their  great  opportunity. 

To  return,  however,  to  the  railway  ;  it  was  evident 
to  an  impartial  observer  even  two  years  ago  that 
the  line,  when  ballasted  and  completed,  could  hardly 
fail  to  be  a  successful  undertaking.  There  are  very 
few  natural  difficulties  to  overcome.  The  rivers  are 
awkward  because  they  have  soft  bottoms,  and  it 
has  been  necessary  to  bridge  them  by  means  of 
sinking  caissons,  a  tedious  and  expensive  business  ; 
but,  with  the  exception  of  the  Sungari,  which  has  to 
be  crossed  twice,  there  are  no  very  great  rivers  to 
negotiate.  As  far  as  Tieh-ling  the  railway  runs 
almost  due  north  along  the  level  basin  of  the  Liao 
River.  From  Tieh-ling  to  Kuan-cheng-tze  it  pro¬ 
ceeds  in  the  same  direction  over  the  hardly  percep¬ 
tible  swell  in  the  prairie  which  forms  the  watershed 

D 


50 


THE  MANCHURIAN  RAILWAY 


between  the  Liao  and  the  Sungari.  From  Kuan- 
cheng-tze  to  Kharbin  the  country  sinks  to  the  level 
again,  and  the  railway  has  to  cross  the  Sungari  by 
a  big  bridge,  about  ninety  versts  south  of  the 
junction  of  the  Vladivostok  and  Port  Arthur  lines. 

Between  Kharbin  and  Kaidolovo  the  Khingan 
range  of  mountains  has  to  be  tunneled,  and  there 
is  a  similar  obstacle  between  Kharbin  and  Vladi¬ 
vostok  ;  but  these  ranges  call  for  no  extraordinary 
exercise  of  engineering  skill. 

Throughout  the  Manchurian  railway  the  Russians 
have  wisely  put  down  heavy  rails — heavy,  that  is  to 
say,  in  comparison  with  those  of  the  Siberian  line. 
The  rails  for  Manchuria  as  well  as  the  engines  come 
from  the  United  States,  and  the  former  weigh  65  lb. 
per  yard  as  compared  with  the  48  lb.  rails  of  the 
Siberian  road ;  so  that  with  level  running  and 
good  rails  a  higher  rate  of  speed  can  be  obtained  on 
the  Manchurian  railway  than  on  the  greater  portion 
of  the  Siberian  line.  In  fact,  the  chief  engineer 
expected  to  accomplish  the  six  hundred  and  fifty 
miles  between  Kharbin  and  Dalny  in  fifteen  hours 
with  the  line  in  proper  working  condition.  This, 
like  most  Russian  estimates,  may  be  a  little  too 
sanguine,  but  the  distance  can  easily  be  covered  in 
twenty-four  hours,  allowing  liberally  for  stoppages. 

At  the  time  I  was  in  Manchuria  there  were  still 
1 70  versts  to  be  laid  on  the  Kaidolovo-Kharbin  sec¬ 
tion,  and  the  long  tunnel  through  the  Khingan  moun¬ 
tains  had  not  even  been  begun ;  nevertheless,  the 
work  was  being  pushed  forward  at  so  rapid  a  rate 
that  I  felt  there  was  no  reason  to  doubt  the  promises 


THE  MANCHURIAN  RAILWAY 


51 


of  the  Russian  engineers,  even  when  those  promises 
seemed  at  first  sight  rather  extravagant.  I  could 
hardly  believe,  for  example,  that  the  two  Sungari 
bridges,  then  in  a  very  embryo  state,  would  be 
finished,  as  they  said  they  would  be,  early  in  1902  ; 
yet  the  feat  was  actually  accomplished.  Indeed,  the 
Russians  have  been  wonderfully  faithful  to  their 
undertakings  in  this  respect.  Looking  over  the 
columns  of  the  Morning  Post ,  I  find  that,  writing  on 
the  subject  from  Kirin  in  1901,  I  advised  travellers 
to  wait  until  the  spring  of  1903  before  attempting 
the  Manchurian  route.  By  that  time,  unless  un¬ 
foreseen  accidents  occurred,  the  line  would  be  in 
good  working  order,  and  the  journey  from  London 
to  China  would  be  reduced  by  more  than  a  third  in 
point  of  time.  Even  by  1902,  I  added,  travellers 
would  be  using  the  Manchurian  line  in  preference  to 
the  longer  and  more  uncertain  journey  by  Vladi¬ 
vostok  and  the  Amur  ;  and  before  the  summer  a 
record  journey  would  certainly  be  made  between 
Shanghai  and  London.  But  those  who  looked  for 
comfort  and  who  really  desired  to  gain  considerably 
in  point  of  time  must  wait  until  1903.  This  view 
was  considered  absurdly  optimistic  by  all  of  the 
foreign  community  with  whom  I  discussed  the 
matter  in  China — Russians,  of  course,  excepted. 
But  it  has  been  exactly  borne  out  by  facts.  Last  year 
(1902)  it  was  quite  possible  to  go  from  New-chwang 
to  St.  Petersburg  in  seventeen  days,  but  delays  were 
still  frequent.  This  year,  however,  the  line  has 
been  so  improved  and  the  service  is  so  good  that  one 
can  go  from  Dalny  to  St.  Petersburg  in  thirteen  and 


52 


THE  MANCHURIAN  RAILWAY 


a  half  days  with  the  greatest  comfort  by  one  of  the 
most  luxurious  trains  in  the  world ;  and  when  the 
break  of  journey  at  Lake  Baikal  is  done  away  with 
and  the  Siberian  railway  is  brought  up  to  the 
standard  of  the  Manchurian  branch,  the  journey  will 
be  considerably  shortened.  As  it  is,  London  has 
been  brought  within  eighteen  days  of  Shanghai  in 
actual  fact ;  and  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that 
this  figure  will  not  be  reduced  to  fifteen  in  the 
course  of  the  next  two  or  three  years.  The  mails, 
going  as  quickly  as  possible  by  the  P.  &  0. 
steamers,  take  thirty-one  days,  and  the  Canadian 
Pacific  route  can  never  do  much  better  than  that. 
Already,  therefore,  the  Trans-Siberian  railway  with 
its  Manchurian  branch  has  brought  about  a  great 
and  vital  change  in  our  intercourse  with  the  Far 
East.  Nor  is  there  only  a  saving  in  time — the 
passenger  fare  has  been  reduced  enormously.  It  is 
difficult  to  say  how  much  it  costs  to  accomplish  a 
journey  which  may  be  broken  at  various  points  and 
may  be  made  more  or  less  expensive  according  to  the 
amount  of  luggage  taken.  But,  roughly  speaking* 
one  can  go  from  London  to  Shanghai  vid  Siberia 
with  a  reasonable  amount  of  luggage  and  an  ample 
allowance  for  food  and  drink  for  fifty  pounds.  By 
P.  &  0.  or  German  mail  the  journey,  including  tips  (a 
very  considerable  item)  and  other  expenses  on  board 
cannot  be  accomplished  for  less  than  double  that 
sum.  There  are,  of  course,  cheaper  steamers,  but 
equally  one  can  go  by  rail  for  a  great  deal  less  by 
travelling  second  class.  It  is  only  fair  to  add,  also, 
that  by  far  the  most  expensive  part  of  the  overland 


THE  MANCHURIAN  RAILWAY 


53 


route  is  the  journey  from  London  to  St.  Peters- 

Commercially  speaking,  the  Manchurian  branch  is 
bound  to  be  a  success.  With  the  exception  of  Mr. 
Hosie’s  work  on  Manchuria,  no  traveller’s  book  that 
I  have  read  does  justice  to  the  teeming  agricultural 
wealth  of  this  vast  country,  partly  because  journeys 
in  the  interior  are  not  generally  undertaken  when 
the  crops  are  standing,  and  partly  because,  hereto¬ 
fore,  foreigners  have  followed  the  old  road  from 
Mukden  to  Kirin,  which  runs  along  the  foothills  on 
the  edge  only  of  that  great  prairie-like  belt  which  is 
made  up  of  the  lower  Liao  basin  and  the  middle 
portion  of  the  Sungari  Valley,  with  the  rich  uplands 
intervening.  In  this  belt  there  is  a  compact  space, 
nearly  as  large  as  the  whole  of  England,  of  the 
finest  agricultural  land  in  the  world,  cultivated  by 
thrifty  farmers  who  have  emigrated  in  bygone  years 
from  Chih-li  and  Shan-tung.  Here  are  beans  of  all 
kinds,  wheat,  kow-liang,  Indian  corn,  indigo,  hemp, 
and  all  sorts  of  vegetables,  in  greater  profusion  pro¬ 
bably  than  anywhere  else  in  the  two  hemispheres 
within  equal  limits.  But  the  wealth  of  the  farmer 
has  yet  to  be  increased  by  the  cultivation  of  the 
farther  valleys,  the  introduction  of  scientific  fruit¬ 
growing,  and  the  raising  of  sheep  and  cattle,  for 
which  there  is  abundant  pasture  throughout  the  yet 
virgin  hills  to  the  east  of  the  railway.  To  find 
an  agricultural  population  already  established  and 
so  prosperous  is  like  discovering  a  gold  mine  for 
railway  builders.  From  the  very  moment  the 
line  was  open  to  traffic  it  \yas  bound  to  pay,  and 


54 


THE  MANCHURIAN  RAILWAY 


might  even  have  been  paying  its  expenses  in  the 
semi-construction  period  under  reasonably  good 
management. 

Owing  to  the  great  riches  of  the  country  it  was 
possible  to  draw  a  straight  line  through  Manchuria 
without  going  to  the  one  side  or  the  other  to  seek 
markets.  It  should  be  stated  by  way  of  parenthesis 
that,  technically  speaking,  a  long  section  of  the  line 
north  of  Kai-yuan  is  in  Mongolia.  But  as  this 
territory,  of  which  Kuan-cheng-tze  is  the  chief 
town,  is  under  the  regular  Chinese  administration, 
it  is,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  part  of  what  we 
call  Manchuria.  By  a  clause  in  the  original  agree¬ 
ment  the  railway  could  not  pass  within  twenty  versts 
of  the  principal  towns,  and  for  that  reason  the  line 
took  a  bend  round  Mukden  in  order  to  comply  with 
the  clause.  It  was  quite  evident,  however,  that  the 
Russians  never  seriously  intended  to  abide  by  the 
agreement,  as  no  preparations  had  been  made  to 
throw  a  permanent  bridge  over  the  River  Hun, 
which  had  to  be  crossed  in  the  course  of  the  devia¬ 
tion,  and  now  the  alignment  has  been  altered  so  as 
to  bring  the  railway  close  to  Mukden.  Liao-yang 
and  Tieh-ling  are  both  close  to  the  line,  while  Kai- 
yuan  and  Kuan-cheng-tze  are  both  a  few  versts 
away.  The  production  of  beans  and  grain  is  so 
extensive  throughout  the  whole  fertile  belt  that, 
without  going  out  of  its  way,  the  new  railway  will 
always  have  its  rolling-stock  employed  to  the 
utmost.  Even  at  Tieh-ling,  where  the  Liao  River 
is  only  two  miles  or  less  from  the  walls  of  the  city, 
the  freights  were  already  in  1901  lower  by  rail  than 


THE  MANCHURIAN  RAILWAY 


55 


by  river,  and  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  large 
4  4  squeezes  ”  had  to  be  paid  to  the  Russian  railway 
employees,  and  the  Chinese  officials  were  allowed  to 
levy  a  tax  at  the  starting-point  upon  all  goods 
travelling  by  rail.  It  may  be  easily  imagined, 
therefore,  that  when  rolling-stock  becomes  abundant, 
and  freights  are  reduced  to  a  normal  level,  and  a 
respectable  staff  is  employed  upon  the  railway,  the 
Chinese  will  generally  find  it  more  profitable  to  send 
their  goods  by  rail  than  by  river.  It  was  wonderful 
to  see  how  quickly  the  natives  adapted  themselves 
to  new  methods.  Though  the  rails  had  hardly  been 
pegged  down  to  the  sleepers,  we  found  tons  of  beans 
and  grain  waiting  at  the  sidings  for  transportation 
at  every  station  from  Liao-yang  to  Kai-yuan.  At 
Tieh-ling,  where  the  river  is  a  direct  competitor, 
there  were  at  least  three  hundred  car-loads  of  beans 
and  peas  waiting  to  go  down  by  rail.  It  must  be 
remembered  that  at  best  the  river  is  only  available 
for  those  farmers  and  merchants  who  live  near  its 
banks ;  otherwise  the  cost  of  carts  to  bring  the 
produce  to  the  river,  especially  in  the  rainy  season 
and  the  autumn,  when  the  crops  are  being  moved,  is 
so  great  that  the  difficulties  of  transport  prevent 
more  than  a  mere  fraction  of  the  total  yield  reaching 
the  seaboard.  The  railway  will,  therefore,  being 
both  cheaper  and  much  more  expeditious,  supple¬ 
ment  the  river  in  such  a  fashion  as  to  leave  the  old 
waterway  hopelessly  in  the  rear ;  and  it  is  safe 
to  prophesy  that  in  a  few  years  branch  lines  will  be 
required  to  act  as  feeders  to  the  main  line  all  over 
Manchuria. 


56 


THE  MANCHURIAN  RAILWAY 


A  simple  example  may  be  given  to  show  the  great 
advantage  of  railway  transport  in  this  country.  In 
order  to  get  from  Kuan-cheng-tze  to  Kirin  (a  dis¬ 
tance  of  eighty  miles  or  so),  we  had  to  hire  four  carts 
to  carry  ourselves  and  our  effects.  The  journey  took 
three  days  and  cost  eighty  roubles  (^8)  for  cart  hire 
alone.  When  the  branch  railway  to  Kirin  is  finished 
the  same  journey  would  take  three  hours,  and  the 
whole  charge  for  ourselves  and  baggage  could  not 
exceed  ten  roubles  (£  i ). 

It  will  be  a  great  pity,  however,  if  the  Russian 
Government  does  not  take  steps  to  check  the  cupidity 
of  its  employees,  who  bid  fair  at  present  to  in¬ 
augurate  a  system  of  “squeeze”  worse  than  any¬ 
thing  so  far  imagined  by  the  Chinese  themselves. 
A  merchant  who  wishes  to  send  his  goods  by  rail  must 
first  pay  for  his  cars.  He  must  then  bribe  an  official 
with  a  hundred  roubles — there  is  almost  a  fixed 
tariff — to  produce  the  cars.  Next,  another  official 
must  have  fifty  roubles  or  the  cars  cannot  start,  and 
so  it  goes  down  the  line  from  the  stationmaster  to 
the  navvy  who  couples  the  cars,  until  the  wretched 
merchant  has  to  disburse  two  hundred  roubles  (£20) 
in  order  to  secure  the  transport  for  which  he  had 
already  paid  the  legal  fare.  His  difficulties  have 
only  then  just  begun,  for  at  each  intervening 
station  similar  gratuities  must  be  forthcoming, 
or  his  cars  will  be  shunted  into  a  siding  on  one 
pretext  or  another  and  left  there  until  they  are 
ransomed.  The  Chinese  merchants,  accustomed 
to  pay  “squeezes,”  acquiesce  in  this  system  with 
fairly  good  grace ;  nevertheless,  they  ought  to  be 


THE  MANCHURIAN  RAILWAY 


57 


protected  by  Government,  and  it  is  not  likely  that 
foreigners  will  so  easily  tolerate  this  sort  of  treat¬ 
ment. 

As  regards  the  construction  of  the  line,  there  can 
be  no  question  about  the  greatness  of  the  under¬ 
taking  or  the  rapidity  of  the  execution.  The  agree¬ 
ment  between  Russia  and  China  for  the  building 
of  the  Trans-Manchurian  line  was  signed  in  Sep¬ 
tember  1896.  The  first  sod  was  cut  at  the  end  of 
August  1897.  The  whole  line  had  to  be  completed 
in  six  years  from  the  commencement  of  the  enter¬ 
prise.  But  after  the  work  of  construction  had  begun 
Russia  occupied  Port  Arthur,  and  it  was  necessary 
to  add  a  branch  line  of  some  six  hundred  and  fifty 
miles  to  the  original  scheme.  In  spite  of  this  addi¬ 
tion,  and  in  spite  also  of  the  Boxer  Rising,  which 
destroyed  a  large  portion  of  the  permanent  way, 
and  in  the  face  of  a  most  disastrous  flood  in  the 
summer  of  1901,  which  swept  away  a  number  of 
half-finished  culverts  and  bridges,  to  say  nothing  of 
many  miles  of  earthworks,  the  rails  were  actually 
laid  by  the  end  of  1901  ;  that  is  to  say,  two  years 
before  the  stipulated  time  had  expired.  If,  how¬ 
ever,  a  stricter  interpretation  must  be  put  upon  the 
time  clause  in  the  agreement,  it  is  only  necessary  to 
point  out  that  the  whole  railway  was  in  perfect 
working  order  in  the  spring  of  1 903  ;  that  is  to  say, 
five  and  a  half  years  from  the  time  of  starting. 
The  actual  length  of  what  is  called  the  Chinese 
Eastern  railway  is  about  sixteen  hundred  miles, 
but  the  whole  system,  which  includes  the  portions 
of  the  Kaidolovo- Vladivostok  line  in  Russian 


58 


THE  MANCHURIAN  RAILWAY 


territory,  which  was  substituted  for  the  projected 
Amur  railway,  has  a  length  of  about  two  thousand 
miles. 

I  do  not  believe  there  is  any  other  instance  on 
record  of  the  creation  of  a  railway  system  in  an 
entirely  new  country  of  such  a  length  in  such  a 
time ;  and,  when  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  con¬ 
struction  are  considered,  the  execution  of  the  great 
enterprise  seems  to  belong  properly  to  the  region  of 
fairy  tales.  Not  only  was  the  work  of  construction 
upset  by  the  Boxer  scourge  and  by  one  of  the 
greatest  floods  in  the  history  of  Manchuria,  but  the 
climate  has  at  all  times  been  a  constant  difficulty. 
It  is  very  hard  to  carry  out  a  great  work  of  this  sort 
in  a  country  where  the  thermometer  drops  a  long 
way  below  zero  for  four  months  in  the  year,  and 
where  the  rains  in  summer  descend  with  tropical 
violence  and  volume.  I  doubt,  indeed,  whether  any 
other  country  but  Russia  could  have  accomplished 
such  a  task.  The  enormous  expense  would  have 
deterred  any  Government  which  had  to  submit  the 
estimates  to  a  popular  assembly.  The  cost,  first  and 
last,  has  been  fabulous,  amounting  to  close  upon 
£ 30,000  per  mile,  or  just  three  times  what  we 
should  regard  as  a  maximum  figure  for  such  a 
railway. 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  embezzlement  and 
maladministration  are  largely  to  blame  for  this  enor¬ 
mous  outlay.  The  usual  stories  regarding  engineers 
and  contractors  are  rife  in  Manchuria  as  they  are  in 
Siberia,  and  it  is  suggested  that  the  Boxer  outbreak 
came  as  a  salvation  to  many  engineers  by  “  destroy- 


THE  MANCHURIAN  RAILWAY 


59 


ing  ”  a  great  many  bridges  which  had  been  paid  for 
but  existed  only  on  paper.  But  if  these  stories  are 
true  they  concern  only  the  engineers  and  their  Gov¬ 
ernment,  and  in  no  way  affect  the  value  of  the  rail¬ 
way  to  the  world  at  large.  About  that  there  can  be 
no  doubt.  The  Manchurian  railway  is  now  a  great 
accomplished  fact,  which  in  a  few  years  will  double 
and  treble  the  export  trade  of  the  country,  and  will 
open  up  vast  possibilities  of  manufacturing  enterprise 
on  an  absolutely  virgin  soil. 

One  point  must  especially  be  emphasised.  Judg¬ 
ing  by  present  results,  the  railway  will  in  the  future 
carry  the  larger  share  of  the  produce  of  the  country. 
If  the  Russians  are  compelled  to  give  up  the  treaty 
port,  and  on  that  account  feel  inclined  to  help  Dalny 
at  the  expense  of  New-chwang,  it  is  quite  possible 
for  them  to  give  advantageous  rates  to  Dalny,  and 
to  put  on  such  prohibitive  rates  between  Ta-sia-chiao 
and  New-chwang  that  merchants  would  be  compelled 
to  export  their  produce  by  way  of  Dalny.  This  was 
not  the  opinion  of  British  residents  in  New-chwang 
when  I  visited  the  port,  as  they  trusted  to  the  con¬ 
servative  spirit  of  the  Chinese  merchants  and  to 
the  old  fetish  regarding  the  superiority  of  water 
transport  over  rail.  They  appeared  to  forget  the 
numerous  instances  in  which  Chinese  merchants 
elsewhere  have  adapted  themselves  to  improved 
methods,  and  they  overlook  the  fact  that,  though 
water  transport  is  undoubtedly  cheaper  than  rail, 
other  things  being  equal,  a  cheaply  worked  rail¬ 
way  will  easily  outbid  Chinese  methods  of  water 
transport.  Nor  will  the  Liao  River  be  in  position 


60 


THE  MANCHURIAN  RAILWAY 


to  compete  successfully  with  the  railway  unless  the 
Russians  keep  it  patrolled  and  free  from  the  attacks 
of  brigands. 

In  a  word,  though  the  railway  may  not  interfere 
much  with  the  existing  export  trade  of  New-chwang, 
it  will  undoubtedly  be  the  controlling  factor  in  the 
growth  of  the  export  trade  of  Manchuria,  and  if 
the  treaty  port  wants  to  have  a  share  of  that 
growth  it  must  become  a  part  of  the  Russian  system 
and  abandon  its  international  character.  This  may 
be  a  hard  saying  for  British  merchants  who  have 
been  the  pioneers  in  opening  up  Manchuria,  but  it  is 
nevertheless  a  true  one. 


CHAPTER  Y 


ON  THE  ROAD 

Kuan-cheng-tze  is  one  of  the  most  flourishing 
market  centres  in  all  the  northern  part  of  the 
Chinese  Empire.  Technically  in  Mongolia,  it  is 
to  all  intents  and  purposes  a  Manchurian  town, 
administered  by  a  Chinese  official  under  the 
Governor  of  the  Kirin  province.  In  all  times  it 
has  a  position  of  importance  on  the  highway  from 
Sungari  to  the  Gulf  of  Pechili  as  a  grain  emporium 
in  the  middle  of  a  most  fertile  district,  and  now  it 
contains  a  large  Russian  garrison,  consisting  for  the 
most  part  of  the  “  Achranie  Straja  ”  and  a  branch  of 
the  Russo- Chinese  Bank,  which  not  only  is  an  aid 
to  commerce  but  a  very  pleasant  help  and  refuge 
for  the  traveller.  As  we  had  to  wait  a  couple  of 
days  for  our  baggage,  which  was  still  on  the  road 
behind  us,  we  found  the  hospitality  of  the  bank 
most  useful. 

We  had  now,  without  much  regret,  parted  com¬ 
pany  with  the  railway,  and  were  preparing  to  strike 
across  at  right  angles  to  Kirin,  the  provincial  capital, 
which  lies  eighty  miles  east  of  what  the  Russians 
have  made  the  main  road  of  traffic  north  and 
south.  Though  it  was  pleasant  to  get  away  from 
the  officialdom  and  procrastination  of  the  railway, 


62 


ON  THE  ROAD 


we  were  confronted  at  the  outset  by  the  difficulties 
and  delays  of  Chinese  travel  in  the  rainy  season. 
Carts,  of  which  we  needed  four,  could  hardly  be 
procured  at  all,  partly  owing  to  the  season  of  the 
year  and  partly  because  the  Russians  had  raised  the 
prices  to  an  exorbitant  standard  by  their  lavish 
expenditure  in  the  work  of  railroad  construction. 
After  much  bargaining  we  succeeded  in  persuading 
four  carters  to  accompany  us  at  the  rate  of  35  s.  a 
cart  for  the  whole  journey.  They  were  to  be  ready 
at  four  o’clock  in  the  morning  in  order  that  we  might 
make  an  early  start.  They  arrived  about  nine,  spent 
a  good  hour  in  loading,  and,  after  receiving  half 
their  pay  as  earnest-money,  disappeared  again  for 
two  hours  in  true  Chinese  fashion  for  the  purpose  of 
paying  their  hotel  bills  in  Kuan- cheng- tze. 

Finally,  we  got  away  at  about  midday,  and  only  suc¬ 
ceeded  in  covering  twenty -five  versts  before  nightfall ; 
but  since  the  heavens  were  propitious  and  withheld 
their  rain  we  had  no  reason  to  complain  of  an  extra 
day  on  the  road,  where  we  were  once  again,  as  soon 
as  we  had  passed  the  gates  of  Kuan-cheng-tze,  free 
from  military  rule.  It  is  true  that,  for  form’s  sake, 
a  Cossack  guard  of  seven  men  accompanied  us  ; 
but  the  Cossacks  were  such  genial,  good-natured 
fellows  that  they  were  a  help  rather  than  an  en¬ 
cumbrance  to  our  journey.  Their  protection  was 
quite  unnecessary. 

It  was  good,  too,  to  have  a  horse  between  the  knees, 
and  to  live  for  a  short  time  the  unconstrained  and 
picturesque  life  of  the  road,  which  will  soon  become 
as  much  a  thing  of  the  past  in  the  better-known 


ON  THE  ROAD 


63 


parts  of  China  as  it  is  in  the  England  of  to-day. 
In  a  prosperous  country  like  Manchuria  it  is  sin¬ 
gularly  free  from  discomforts.  The  inns  are  large, 
and,  for  China,  unwontedly  clean,  consisting  for  the 
most  part  of  large  square  yards,  with,  in  nearly 
every  case,  a  long  low  building  occupying  the  whole 
side  opposite  to  the  gate.  On,e  portion  of  this 
building  may  be  partitioned  off  for  guests  of  a 
superior  rank  ;  but,  as  a  rule,  there  is  but  one  room, 
with  a  kang  on  each  side  running  the  whole  length, 
on  which  the  inmates  eat  and  sleep  and  in  general 
pass  their  time. 

On  your  arrival  you  sweep  the  whole  crowd  of 
old  men,  women  and  children  from  one  end  of  the 
room,  perform  such  ablutions  as  you  may  in  the 
circumstances  desire  entirely  coram  publico ,  while 
your  boys  are  getting  hot  water  and  eggs  and  pre¬ 
paring  supper.  Thereafter  your  camp-bed,  without 
which  you  should  never  leave  a  treaty  port,  is 
stretched  on  the  kang,  and  you  turn  in  early,  since 
there  is  nothing  else  to  do,  but  not  so  early  as  the 
Cossacks,  who  are  snoring  already  on  the  opposite 
kang.  You  sleep  almost  under  the  cool  stars,  for 
one  whole  side  of  the  inn  is  open  to  the  outer  air  at 
this  time  of  year. 

There  is  nothing  to  disturb  your  peace,  not  even 
the  hereditary  foe  of  travellers  in  Chinese  and  other 
inns,  from  which  your  camp-bed  protects  you ;  only 
a  pig  is  grunting  outside  the  open  window,  and 
sleep  is  induced  by  that  most  typical  of  country 
sounds,  the  rhythmical  munching  of  the  ponies 
at  their  rude  mangers  in  the  yard.  You  are  up 


64 


ON  THE  ROAD 


betimes  in  the  morning,  for  the  back  of  the  day’s 
journey  must  be  broken  before  the  sun  is  hot ;  and, 
indeed,  the  flies,  the  one  pest  of  Manchuria,  will  not 
suffer  any  laggard  to  linger  in  bed.  The  score  is 
paid  before  you  retire  for  the  night,  in  order  to 
inspire  the  greater  confidence  in  your  host.  It  is  a 
small  matter  of  some  five  shillings  for  lodging,  hot 
water,  food  for  three  horses  and  three  Chinese  boys, 
and  a  dozen  eggs  for  yourself.  The  Cossacks  and 
carters  settle  their  own  accounts. 

The  sun  is  hardly  above  the  horizon  when  you 
are  in  the  saddle  and  away  over  the  swelling  up¬ 
lands  which  stretch  out  to  the  east  in  larger  and 
larger  waves,  rather  like  the  wolds  of  Lincolnshire 
on  a  bigger  scale,  until  the  blue  mountain  ridges 
begin.  On  your  sturdy  Mongolian  pony  you  amble 
ahead  of  the  convoy  until  a  stream  and  a  grassy 
bank  and  a  shady  tree  entice  you  to  lounge  away  an 
hour  to  let  the  rumbling  carts  overtake  you. 

There  are  woods  now  of  respectable  dimensions, 
cultivation  is  not  quite  so  universal,  villages  are 
scarce,  and  you  are  free  to  breathe  the  fresh  wind 
of  the  wolds  away  from  the  oppressive  over- 
populated  atmosphere  which  clings  to  the  plains  of 
China.  In  this  less  utilitarian  country  there  is 
room,  too,  for  flowers  and  flowering  shrubs  among 
the  green  crops.  The  lily  of  the  valley,  which 
grows  to  profusion  about  Kirin,  is  over  now,  but 
the  woods  are  carpeted  with  bluebell  and  con¬ 
volvulus,  in  every  creek  the  iris  blows,  in  the 
fields  the  tiger  lily  and  the  poppy  add  colour  to  the 
dark  green  millet,  while  under  the  very  wheels  of 


RUSSIANS  GUARDING  AN  UNCOMPLETED  BRIDGE 


ON  THE  ROAD  65 

your  cart  the  belated  crocus  still  breaks  in  the 
roadway. 

Then  when  the  mid-day  sun  flattens  the  landscape 
you  rest  at  another  inn,  where  you  may  hob-nob 
with  a  French  bishop  or  pass  the  time  of  day  with 
a  sleepy  mandarin  wending  his  way  over  hill  and 
dale  in  a  blue  chair  escorted  by  picturesque  Chinese 
cavaliers  with  knees  tucked  up  on  their  ponies’ 
withers  and  rifles  slung  nonchalantly,  muzzle  down¬ 
wards,  over  their  shoulders.  In  the  afternoon, 
perhaps,  a  Russian  officer  comes  along,  with  his 
guard  riding  erect  behind  him  and  a  light  cart 
following  with  his  baggage,  for  he  is  out  on  a 
surveying  expedition,  or  possibly  is  varying  the 
monotony  of  garrison  life  by  a  week’s  pursuit  of 
the  wily  hun-hu-tze.  It  only  requires  a  night 
attack  from  the  pig- tailed  Jack  Sheppard  of 
Manchuria  to  make  the  old-fashioned  picture  of 
road  life  complete,  and  that  you  may  get  if  you  are 
lucky. 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  second  day  we  caught 
sight  of  a  high  mountain  peak  which  lies  to  the 
south-west  of  Kirin  and  serves  as  a  landmark  to 
travellers.  Some  Russian  officer  or  missionary  of 
a  classic  turn  of  mind  has  labelled  it  Mount  Par¬ 
nassus.  We  kept  it  in  view  for  the  last  forty  miles 
of  our  journey,  reaching  its  spurs  by  eight  o’clock 
on  the  third  day.  Thence  the  road  winds  through 
wooded  hills  until  it  crosses  the  last  high  ridge 
before  Kirin.  On  the  summit  of  the  pass  a  Chinese 
temple  is  most  picturesquely  set  down,  before  the 
gates  of  which  a  lovely  view  of  the  Sungari  Valley 


66 


ON  THE  ROAD 


unfolds  itself.  But  Kirin  is  not  yet  visible ;  the 
road  turns  to  the  left,  and  clings  to  the  bottom  of 
the  hills  among  the  trees,  and  you  are  hardly  aware 
of  the  near  presence  of  the  capital  until  your  pony 
is  suddenly  up  to  his  fetlocks  in  the  squalor  and 
offal  of  the  suburbs. 

Though  the  Kuan-cheng-tze  road  is  the  more 
beautiful,  it  lacks  the  splendid  aspect  of  the  more 
northerly  route  towards  Kharbin,  by  which  I  sub¬ 
sequently  left  the  city.  This  road  climbs  the 
fortress  hill  just  above  the  west  wall,  and  thence, 
as  you  look  down  on  the  city,  and  the  river,  and  the 
mountains  across  the  river,  the  first  step  in  the 
ladder  of  the  Long  White  Mountain,  you  command 
a  view  which  is  scarcely  surpassed  in  any  inhabited 
part  of  the  world.  It  reminds  the  traveller  of 
Florence  seen  from  Fiesole,  but  the  scale  is  far 
grander.  The  Sungari  is  a  more  imposing,  if  perhaps 
a  muddier,  Arno,  and  the  mountains  of  Manchuria, 
stretching  away  in  infinite  vistas,  would  put  to 
shame  the  poor  Chianti  hills,  while  in  their  recesses 
lies  many  an  unvisited  Vallombrosa. 

Down  below  the  comparison  stops  with  a  sudden 
shock.  Kirin,  “  the  city  of  the  happy  forest,”  is  a 
mean  town  which,  from  being  Chinese,  has  missed  a 
magnificent  opportunity.  Hardly  a  building  of  any 
note  varies  the  monotony  of  its  streets,  and  instead 
of  a  splendid  Lung’  Arno  along  the  Sungari  there  is 
a  wretched  filthy  street  supported  on  crazy  piles 
which  threaten  at  any  moment  to  collapse  and  to 
precipitate  the  passenger  into  the  river  forty  feet 
below.  The  one  peculiarity  of  the  town  which 


ON  THE  ROAD 


67 


differentiates  it  from  other  Chinese  towns  is  the  fact 
that  its  streets  are  roughly  paved  with  tree- trunks, 
which  feature  duly  impressed  my  Shanghai  boy, 
whose  experience  of  denuded  China  has  led  him  to 
believe  that  a  street  might  as  readily  be  paved  with 
gold  as  with  precious  wood. 

Kirin  is,  however,  by  no  means  a  poor  town  in 
the  matter  of  riches.  Timber  has  up  to  now  been 
its  chief  source  of  wealth — a  source  which  the 
Chinese  are  draining  very  rapidly ;  but  under  Rus¬ 
sian  rule  it  is  still  likely  to  retain  great  import¬ 
ance,  not  only  as  the  provincial  capital,  but  also  as 
the  centre  of  a  district  which  is  very  rich  in  both 
coal  and  iron.  Unfortunately  the  river  is  only 
navigable  here  for  light  draught  junks,  and  for 
them  only  in  summer,  though  in  winter  it  is  con¬ 
verted  by  the  frost  into  a  splendid  highway.  It  is 
probable,  therefore,  that  its  prosperity  will  remain 
stationary  until  the  branch  line  connecting  it  with 
the  Kharbin  Port- Arthur  railway  is  finished. 

The  Russians  had  a  considerable  force  of  Infantry 
and  Artillery  encamped  across  the  river  in  summer 
quarters — in  all  about  ten  thousand  men — which 
they  are  not  likely  to  decrease  for  some  time  to 
come,  since  four  thousand  recruits  from  Siberia  were 
marching  in  to  replace  the  time-expired  men  just  as 
I  left  the  city. 

The  General  himself  was  away  on  an  important 
expedition  along  the  hills  to  the  south,  which  was 
being  undertaken  in  conjunction  with  a  similar 
expedition  emanating  from  Mukden,  the  object 
being  to  clear  the  country  of  brigands.  They  were 


68 


ON  THE  ROAD 


coming  back  to  Kirin  while  I  was  there  after  a  more 
or  less  bloodless  campaign,  in  which  they  had  failed 
to  locate  the  hun-hu-tzes,  who  disappeared  into  the 
hills,  or  the  crops,  or  the  villages  before  the  advance 
of  the  army. 

There  were  no  preparations  for  the  keeping  up  of 
a  permanent  Russian  garrison  at  Kirin,  such  as  there 
are,  for  instance,  at  Kharbin.  The  Russian  Govern¬ 
ment  did  not  appear  to  know  its  own  mind  about 
the  military  future  of  Manchuria,  so  that  officers 
and  men  were  kept  almost  under  marching  orders, 
which  condition  of  things  did  not  add  to  the  comfort 
of  camp  life. 

There  was  a  similar  uncertainty  about  the  appor¬ 
tioning  of  political  power  and  responsibility  among 
the  various  officials.  There  was  the  Commander-in- 
Chief  of  the  Russian  forces  in  the  province,  who  had 
his  headquarters  at  Kirin  ;  there  was  a  Military 
Commandant  for  Kirin  itself ;  and,  thirdly,  there 
was  a  Russian  Consul.  Each  of  these  claimed  to 
have  the  power  of  dealing  directly  with  the  Chinese 
Governor- General,  and  each  was  more  or  less  at 
loggerheads  with  the  other  two — a  state  of  things 
which  was  somewhat  typical  of  Russian  rule  in 
Manchuria  generally. 

One  of  the  minor  results  of  the  semi-chaotic 
condition  of  affairs  was  that  the  officers  who  had 
already  been  in  the  district  for  nearly  two  years  had 
been  prevented,  or  imagined  themselves  prevented, 
from  making  any  provision  for  their  personal 
comfort  or  recreation.  The  British  Army  in  similar 
circumstances  would  have  long  before  had  its  cricket 


ON  THE  ROAD 


69 


and  polo  grounds,  its  tennis  courts,  and  racecourse, 
and  would  have  made  life  in  such  a  splendid  country, 
if  not  thoroughly  enjoyable,  at  least  more  than 
tolerable  for  both  officer  and  man. 

The  Russian  officer  has  no  such  resources  ;  he 
does  not  even  take  advantage  of  the  game  in  which 
the  country  abounds,  and,  in  consequence,  finding 
life  almost  insupportable,  he  is  driven  to  the  less 
salubrious  pastimes  of  cards  and  drinking  bouts. 
Among  all  the  officers  I  saw  in  Kirin  and  along  the 
road  to  Kharbin  not  one  had  a  good  word  to  say  for 
Manchuria,  nor  wished  ever  to  set  foot  in  the 
country  again.  The  criticisms  always  ended  with 
the  phrase,  uttered  with  supreme  melancholy  :  “II 
n’y  a  pas  de  femmes/’  which  admits  of  various 
translations. 

The  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  the  doleful 
picture  of  the  Russian  officer  in  Manchuria  is  that, 
if  the  much-abused  polo  and  cricket  of  our  officers 
detracts  from  their  military  efficiency,  as  many 
critics  appear  to  imagine,  they  at  least  produce  a 
much  higher  capacity  for  empire-building  than 
anything  to  be  found  in  the  officers  of  other  nations. 

Though  there  were  some  ten  thousand  Russian 
troops  at  Kirin,  no  officer  ever  dreamed  of  riding 
more  than  a  mile  beyond  the  limits  of  the  town, 
or  the  camp  across  the  river,  without  taking  a 
mounted  escort  with  him,  and  as  mounted  escorts 
are  not  always  available,  the  splendid  valley  of  the 
Upper  Sungari  was  practically  a  sealed  book  to  the 
army.  I  cannot,  in  fact,  imagine  a  much  more 
dismal  life  than  that  of  the  Russian  soldiers  cooped 


70 


ON  THE  ROAD 


up  in  camp  in  a  strange  country,  with  no  permanent 
barracks  to  protect  them  from  the  rains  in  summer 
or  the  severe  cold  of  winter,  with  very  little  and 
very  inglorious  fighting  to  do,  and  absolutely  no 
means  of  recreation.  The  only  men  who  were  not 
to  be  pitied  were  my  friends  in  the  bank,  who  had 
exceedingly  comfortable  quarters,  and  whose  time 
was,  at  all  events,  so  well  occupied  with  the  business 
of  the  bank  that  they  could  not  complain  of 
dulness  or  want  of  employment.  The  two  Presby¬ 
terian  missionaries  also  had  plenty  to  do,  reorganising 
their  church  and  school  after  the  disasters  of  the 
previous  year.  Indeed,  for  the  civilian  a  trading 
centre  like  Kirin,  which  is  just  being  brought  into 
communication  with  the  outer  world,  must  present 
many  points  of  interest.  One  feels  and  almost  sees 
the  motion  of  a  great  Power  which  is  carrying  out 
enormous  changes  in  the  forgotten  parts  of  Asia,  and 
one  instinctively  looks  forward  to  a  future  visit  to 
this  picturesque  spot  when,  in  the  course  of  only 
a  few  years,  the  Upper  Sungari  Valley,  with  its  great 
mineral  wealth  and  natural  attractions,  only  a  short 
time  ago  as  remote  a  district  as  any  in  the  world, 
shall  have  been  brought  within  an  easy  fortnight’s 
journey  of  London. 

In  the  meantime  I  could  not  afford  to  linger  at 
Kirin,  since  my  friend  in  the  bank  very  kindly 
offered  to  give  his  colleague  two  weeks  holiday 
in  order  that  he  might  accompany  me  to  Kharbin, 
where  he  had  business  to  transact,  and  it  was 
necessary  that  he  should  start  very  soon  after  our 
arrival. 


ON  THE  ROAD 


71 


After  a  farewell  entertainment  at  the  house  of  the 
richest  banker  in  Kirin,  within  the  walls  of  which 
one  was  able  to  understand  that  refinement  and 
comfort,  and  a  high  standard  of  luxury  even,  can 
exist  in  the  midst  of  the  most  uninviting  surround¬ 
ings — his  house  was  fitted  with  a  telephone  and 
electric  bells,  and  his  blue  china,  bronzes,  jade,  and 
champagne  were  equally  irreproachable  —  we  left 
Kirin,  glad  to  be  on  the  road  again  in  spite  of  the 
hospitality  of  the  Russo-Chinese  Bank  and  the 
Presbyterian  Mission,  the  two  institutions  which 
help  to  smooth  the  way  for  travellers  in  Man¬ 
churia. 

Our  route  lay  by  the  road  which  follows  the  course 
of  the  Sungari  to  the  point  where  the  Port  Arthur 
and  Kharbin  railway  crosses  it,  one  hundred  versts 
south  of  Kharbin.  This  being  the  main  Russian  line 
of  communication,  the  road  is  furnished  with  mili¬ 
tary  posts  at  distances  of  eighteen  or  twenty  miles 
from  one  another,  where  one  is  always  sure  of  a 
clean  room  and  a  hospitable  reception.  The  Russian 
officer  or  railway  official  is  always  willing  to  share 
his  last  crust  or  his  last  bottle  of  champagne  with 
the  chance  comer,  and  it  is  as  likely  to  be  one  as 
the  other  in  Manchuria. 

Unlike  our  journey  to  Kirin,  this  one  was  spoilt 
by  the  rain,  which  fell  in  torrents,  until  travelling 
became  a  nightmare  of  abysmal  mud  and  everlast¬ 
ing  jolting.  We  started  in  a  tarantass,  but,  finding 
that  impracticable,  took  to  a  light  military  waggon, 
while  our  baggage  followed  in  a  small  Chinese  cart. 
Even  so,  it  was  once  impossible  to  make  more  than 


72 


ON  THE  ROAD 


one  stage  (eighteen  miles)  between  sunrise  and 
sunset.  Sometimes  the  road  was  scored  out  into 
a  dangerous  ravine ;  sometimes  it  was  converted 
into  a  broad  torrent.  On  one  occasion  in  crossing 
such  a  temporary  flood  our  Cossacks’  ponies  (we 
still  had  two  protectors)  were  swept  clean  off  their 
feet  and  were  compelled  to  swim  for  their  lives  to 
the  farther  shore,  while  we  with  our  carts  sat  down 
on  the  near  bank  like  the  Roman  rustic  and  waited 
for  the  river  to  flow  away.  This  it  conveniently 
did ;  at  least  it  fell  eighteen  inches  in  less  than 
two  hours,  so  that  our  carts  could  make  a  crossing. 
But  even  then  everything  had  to  be  unloaded  and 
carried  over  separately  on  horseback  by  the  untiring 
Cossacks  to  avoid  a  thorough  drenching  of  our 
effects. 

There  were  only  two  bright  spots  on  the  land¬ 
scape.  One  came  in  the  shape  of  a  happy  Corean, 
who  trudged  along  by  our  carts  for  a  whole  day. 
His  costume  consisted  of  brown  leather  riding-boots 
much  the  worse  for  mud,  a  Homburg  hat  by  which 
his  topknot  was  concealed,  and  a  pink  umbrella. 
The  rest  of  his  clothing  he  had  prudently  wrapped 
in  oil-cloth  and  carried  in  a  bundle  on  his  shoulder. 
From  the  interest  with  which  he  inspected  the 
various  villages  on  the  way  we  gathered  that  he 
must  be  on  a  walking  tour  for  pleasure  and  instruc¬ 
tion,  for  we  could  hold  no  conversation  with  him, 
though  he  chatted  continuously  in  his  outlandish 
jargon  with  our  Cossacks,  who  for  their  part 
answered  at  length  in  Russian,  and  so  they  passed 
the  long  day,  to  the  supreme  content  of  both  parties, 


ON  THE  ROAD  73 

neither  of  whom  understood  a  word  the  other 
said ! 

He  was  a  kindly  soul,  and  we  quite  missed  his 
company  next  day,  until  his  place  was  taken  by  a 
Russian  lady,  who  came  up  with  us  riding  sturdily 
through  the  deluge  soldier  fashion  on  a  Cossack 
saddle,  attended  by  a  cart  and  two  soldiers.  Per¬ 
haps  she  was  an  officers  wife  driven  away  from 
Kirin  by  the  recent  order  from  Khabarofsk.  In  any 
case,  she  bravely  forded  the  deep  torrents,  kneeling 
on  the  saddle,  as  Cossacks  do,  to  escape  a  wetting, 
and  bore  the  other  inclemencies  of  the  weather  with 
a  bright  equanimity  which  helped  to  lighten  our 
dulness  for  a  day.  And  then  she,  too,  like  the 
Corean,  passed  from  our  ken. 

For  the  rest,  the  only  incident  of  the  road  was  a 
constantly  recurring  one  in  the  endless  stream  of 
recruits  who  passed  us  on  their  way  to  join  their 
regiments  at  Kirin.  On  the  first  afternoon,  when 
the  sun  was  still  shining,  and  they  broke  suddenly 
on  our  view  round  the  bend  of  a  hill,  the  long  red- 
shirted  column  with  shining  bayonets  reminded  one 
for  a  moment  of  a  British  regiment  on  the  march  in 
the  ante-khaki  days.  But  ever  after  that  they  were 
a  straggling  unkempt  crowd,  some  with  boots,  some 
barefooted — either  to  save  their  boots  or  their  feet — 
toiling  painfully  through  the  rain  and  the  mud ;  a 
sturdy  lot,  but  heartily  sick  of  the  business. 

“  How  far  is  it  to  the  next  post?”  they  always 
asked,  and  our  driver,  whether  it  was  eight  or  ten 
or  fifteen,  invariably  answered  “  Five  versts,”  just  to 
keep  up  their  courage,  as  he  explained.  There  are 


74 


ON  THE  ROAD 


more  pleasant  lots  in  life  than  that  of  a  Russian 
conscript  trudging  his  forty  versts  a  day  across  Asia 
to  win  new  realms  for  the  Emperor. 

At  length,  since  the  muddiest  journeys  and  joltings 
have  an  end,  we  arrived  late  one  night  at  La-she-go, 
the  railway  station  on  the  north  bank  of  the  Sungari, 
and  fortunately,  or  unfortunately,  found  a  construc¬ 
tion  train  just  about  to  leave  for  Kharbin.  Not  a 
single  empty  truck  was  in  the  station,  so  we  were 
compelled  to  pack  our  baggage  on  the  top  of  what 
seemed  to  be  piles  of  wheels  and  jagged  scrap-iron, 
and,  sitting  down  on  the  sharp  edges,  we  set  out  for 
the  north  supperless  and  very  tired. 

The  road-bed  is  more  settled  north  of  the  river 
than  on  the  Kuan-cheng-tze  section,  so  that  we 
were  able  to  maintain  a  decent  rate  of  speed,  which 
brought  us  into  New  Kharbin,  the  junction,  at  about 
five  o’clock  in  the  morning,  cold  and  damp  with  the 
dews  of  a  sleepless  night.  Putting  our  baggage  on 
a  cart  we  then  walked  the  five  miles  to  Old  Kharbin, 
the  administrative  town,  which  lies  along  the  line  to 
Vladivostok,  and  at  last,  at  seven  o’clock,  we  found 
a  bed  in  the  hotel. 

Having  thus  reached  the  centre  of  Russian  Man¬ 
churia  by  a  somewhat  devious  journey,  yet  without 
official  documents  and  without  once  being  challenged, 
I  was  content  to  let  the  future  take  care  of  itself, 
and  slept  for  the  next  few  hours  the  sleep  of  the 
just. 


CHAPTER  VI 


KHARBIN 

I  found  Kharbin  chiefly  remarkable  for  the  number 
of  its  generals  and  its  phonographs.  The  phono¬ 
graphs  are  imported  so  freely  from  America  that 
every  house  seems  to  be  haunted  with  an  aged 
crone  singing  the  music  of  “El  Capitan.,,  The 
generals  come  from  St.  Petersburg  or  Moscow  by 
every  mail.  When  a  recent  expedition  of  about 
two  thousand  men  left  Kirin  it  was  accompanied  by 
three  generals ;  they  were  to  act  in  co-operation 
with  a  similar  force  equally  generalled  from  Mukden. 
It  is  not  surprising  that  nothing  came  of  the  expedi¬ 
tion,  the  natural  odds  in  favour  of  the  Hun-hu-tze 
being  so  much  increased.  At  Kharbin  the  plethora 
of  generals  is  at  least  harmless,  if  it  is  not  altogether 
justified  by  the  number  of  troops  stationed  there, 
which  might  amount  to  ten  thousand  or  perhaps 
twelve  thousand  men. 

There  are  in  reality  three  Kharbins  :  one  by  the 
large  railway  bridge  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Sun¬ 
gari  ;  one  called  New  Kharbin,  a  mile  or  so  to  the 
east,  where  the  Port  Arthur  and  Vladivostok  lines 
meet ;  and,  thirdly,  old  Kharbin,  about  eight  versts 
to  the  east  of  New  Kharbin.  The  last  is  the  only 
one  of  the  three  which  had  an  existence  previous  to 


76 


KHARBIN 


the  coming  of  the  Russians,  having  been  employed 
chiefly  in  the  manufacture  of  the  Chinese  equivalent 
for  whisky. 

Troops  appeared  to  be  quartered  in  all  the  three 
towns  indiscriminately,  but  next  year,  or  perhaps  the 
year  after — Russian  dates  must  always  be  accepted 
with  allowances  —  the  bank  and  administrative 
offices  were  to  be  removed  to  New  Kharbin,  the 
city  of  red  bricks,  and  the  old  town,  which  is  still  a 
Chinese  village  with  widened  streets  and  white¬ 
washed  walls,  will  be  delivered  over  entirely  to  the 
military.  As  a  cantonment  the  old  Chinese  whisky 
factory  leaves  little  to  be  desired,  being  situated 
well  away  from  the  other  two  towns  on  the  summit 
of  a  prairie  billow  where  every  breeze  breathes  life 
and  vigour. 

For  the  rest,  Kharbin  in  its  triple  aspect  is  about 
as  ugly  and  uninteresting  as  any  new  prairie  town 
can  expect  to  be.  The  situation,  if  intended  for  a 
future  metropolis,  is  unexampled.  Placed  in  direct 
communication  by  rail  with  all  Siberia  and  Europe, 
it  also  stands  at  the  parting  of  the  ways  in  Man¬ 
churia,  and,  in  addition,  commands  a  navigable 
waterway  to  the  Amur  and  the  open  sea,  while 
from  the  Upper  Sungari  it  will  receive  all  the  wealth 
of  timber  and  ore  of  the  country  of  the  Long  White 
Mountain.  With  the  mind’s  eye  it  is  easy  to  con¬ 
jure  up  a  vision  of  future  greatness  which  shall 
convert  these  three  rising  hamlets  into  one  of  the 
world’s  greatest  emporiums. 

Coming  back,  however,  from  dreams  to  facts,  one 
remembers  that  Kharbin  is  not  in  America.  These 


KHARBIN 


77 


three  lines  of  railway  are  Russian  lines,  which  would 
never  have  been  built  save  for  strategic  purposes. 
This  wide  navigable  river  leads,  not  to  a  Chicago 
nor  to  a  St.  Louis,  but  to  Khabarofsk,  the  seat  of  a 
military  governor,  to  the  Amur,  a  Russian  river,  and 
finally  to  the  sea,  but  to  the  Sea  of  Okhotsk.  In 
other  words,  being  on  the  steppe  and  not,  after  all, 
on  the  prairie,  Kharbin  is  not  susceptible  to  a  boom ; 
and  it  is  typical  of  the  Russians  that  while  they 
have  spent  millions  to  convert  the  barren  coast  of 
Ta-lien-wan  Bay  into  the  capital  of  Manchuria,  they 
have  left  Kharbin  to  grow  up  according  to  actual 
requirements.  It  is  at  present  purely  an  exotic 
living  on  the  artificial  sustenance  of  railway  em¬ 
ployees  and  troops,  and  so  it  will  probably  remain 
for  many  a  year. 

An  Englishman  or  American  would  immediately 
have  his  commercial  imagination  stimulated  by  the 
position  of  the  town.  “  Here,”  he  would  say,  “  is 
the  very  place  for  a  big  city  ;  let  us  make  haste 
and  build  it.”  The  Russian  says  :  “We  have  plenty 
of  space  to  fill  up  before  we  get  to  Kharbin.  If 
Kharbin  is  to  be  a  great  place,  it  will  become  so  all 
in  good  time.  Nobody  is  going  to  take  it  away 
from  us.” 

This  is  the  true  Russian  spirit,  though  it  may 
seem  to  conflict  somewhat  with  the  spirit  of  the 
men  who  are  building  Dalny  and  who  conceived 
the  Trans-Siberian  Railway.  The  fact  is,  that  the 
builders  of  Dalny  belong  to  a  small  party  in  Russia 
who  are  regarded  by  the  greater  part  of  the  com¬ 
munity  as  extravagant  and  reckless.  I  mention 


78 


KHARBIN 


Dalny  because  that  port  is  the  crowning  ornament, 
though  not  by  any  means  the  essential  part  of  the 
great  scheme  which  it  represents*  The  men  who 
are  building  Dalny  are  the  men  who  altered  the 
alignment  of  the  Trans-Siberian  Railway  from  the 
Amur  to  the  Tsi-tsi-har  and  Kharbin  route,  and 
afterwards  made  the  true  terminus  in  the  Liao-tung 
Peninsula.  Few  people  out  of  Russia  probably  know 
how  great  was  the  struggle  to  persuade  the  Govern¬ 
ment  to  build  the  Manchurian  Railway  at  all, 
because  it  is  not  known  how  often  the  bureaucracy 
of  St.  Petersburg  has  been  the  coerced  and  not  the 
willing  agent  of  Russian  expansion. 

It  is  necessary  to  bear  this  in  mind  in  looking  to 
the  future  of  Manchuria,  otherwise  one  is  apt  to  be 
a  little  dazzled  by  the  great  railway  scheme  which 
ends  in  the  Bay  of  Ta-lien-wan.  In  reality,  Dalny 
is  rather  like  the  goods  in  the  shop  window ; 
Kharbin  is  the  plain  cloth  inside.  I  was  discussing, 
with  a  Russian  who  has  reason  to  know  a  good  deal 
about  the  Government’s  intentions  in  Manchuria, 
the  prospect  of  branch  railways,  and  suggested  that 
in  a  country  where  the  main  line  must  immediately 
be  worked  at  a  good  profit  the  branches  must 
follow  very  quickly.  “  You  don’t  know  our  Govern¬ 
ment,”  was  the  reply.  “There  were  two  great 
arguments  in  favour  of  the  Manchurian  line,  one 
strategic  and  the  other  commercial,  yet  we  had  the 
greatest  difficulty  in  getting  the  Government  to 
build  it.  For  the  branch  lines  we  can  only  urge  the 
commercial  argument,  and  that,  I  am  afraid,  will 
not  have  great  weight.” 


KHARBIN 


79 


In  any  case,  Dalny  and  not  Kharbin  is  to  be  the 
capital  of  Manchuria — it  is  already  intended  to 
move  the  headquarters  of  the  Russo-Chinese  Bank 
thither — and  so  unromantic  Kharbin  is  robbed  even 
of  the  interest  which  attaches  to  any  seat  of  govern¬ 
ment. 

The  one  striking  feature  of  the  place  to  the  out¬ 
ward  eye  is  the  absence  of  the  Chinese  element. 
Leaving  out  of  question  the  Chinese  coolies  working 
on  the  railroad,  one  is  confronted  with  an  entirely 
Russian  settlement  of  the  military  kind,  such  as 
might  be  found  anywhere  on  the  plains  of  European 
Russia.  Even  the  open  country  in  the  environments 
of  the  three  towns  is  devoid  of  Chinese,  because  the 
fields  which  before  the  war  were  only  cultivated  by 
yearly  colonists,  who  came  up  from  their  homes 
farther  south  to  reap  the  harvest,  are  now  lying 
fallow,  and  ready  for  the  plough  of  the  Cossack. 
To  a  visitor,  therefore,  Kharbin  presents  rather  a 
dreary  aspect,  which  is  not  improved  when  seen 
from  the  windows  of  a  comfortless  Russian  hotel,  in 
comparison  with  which  a  Chinese  inn  is  clean  and 
luxurious. 

The  one  concession  which  the  authorities  have 
made  to  the  wants  of  civilised  inhabitants  is  to  be 
found  in  the  public  garden,  where  a  few  cherished 
trees  and  plots  of  grass  relieve  the  eye  and  a 
military  band  sometimes  plays  without  positive 
offence  to  the  ear.  The  public  garden  in  the  out¬ 
skirts  of  Russian  civilisation  takes  the  place  of  the 
gymkhana  ground  which  invariably  characterises 
the  march  of  British  progress.  You  cannot  play 


80 


KHARBIN 


polo  or  cricket  in  Kharbin,  but  you  may  sit  beneath 
the  trees  and  listen  to  the  strains  of  “  Lohengrin/' 
rendered  with  some  exactitude  considering  that  you 
are  in  the  wilds  of  Manchuria. 

But  since  I  had  neither  time  nor  desire  to  dally 
in  Kharbin,  it  was  necessary  to  contrive  a  means  of 
exit  from  the  home  of  Russian  red  tape.  It  would 
have  been  simple  enough  in  all  probability  to  get  on 
board  the  steamer  and  proceed  by  the  Sungari  to 
Khabarofsk  without  let  or  hindrance,  but,  having 
gained  my  primary  object  in  reaching  Kharbin,  I  was 
in  a  position  of  greater  freedom  and  less  responsi¬ 
bility,  and,  in  fact,  did  not  care  particularly  what 
route  the  Russian  officials  should  choose  for  me 
long  as  I  was  not  detained  for  a  week  on  the 
as  Russian  frontier. 

Acting,  therefore,  on  the  advice  of  a  Russian 
acquaintance  in  Kharbin,  I  went  with  him  to  the 
military  commandant,  and  made  a  clean  breast  of 
it ;  that  is  to  say,  my  friend  informed  him  in  his 
own  tongue  that  I  was  a  British  newspaper  corre¬ 
spondent,  who  had  arrived  in  Kharbin  without  any 
permission  or  documents  beyond  a  British  passport 
(which  is  not  current  in  Manchuria),  and  that  I 
wanted  to  know  where  I  could  go  next.  The 
general’s  face  took  on  an  expression  of  pained 
surprise  as  he  listened,  and,  at  the  end  of  my 
friend’s  introduction,  he  gave  me  to  understand 
that  I  was  putting  him  in  a  very  awkward  position. 
The  arrival  of  British  correspondents  in  Kharbin  had 
not  been  provided  for,  and  he  had  no  instructions 
either  to  arrest  me  or  to  let  me  go  at  large  ;  which- 


THE  RAILWAY  AND  THE  YELLOW  SEA 


KHARBIN 


81 


ever  course  he  might  take  he  was  sure  to  go  wrong, 
and  he  begged  therefore  to  be  excused  in  the  matter. 
To  Khabarofsk  I  could  not  go  without  permission 
from  the  Governor- General  of  Eastern  Siberia,  and 
that  permission  he  himself  would  not  ask  for.  If, 
as  a  private  individual,  I  should  telegraph  for  per¬ 
mission,  my  request  would  certainly  not  be  granted, 
and  it  would  take  at  least  ten  days  to  get  an 
answer  from  Khabarofsk,  owing  to  the  bad  state  of 
the  telegraph-wires. 

This,  by  the  way,  was  quite  absurd,  because  the 
bank  telegrams  were  going  through  in  a  few  hours. 
It  was  plainly  evident  that  my  request  would  involve 
the  general  in  a  difficulty,  since  he  would  be  called 
on  to  explain  my  presence  in  Kharbin ;  and  at  last, 
in  deference  to  the  wishes  of  the  commandant,  who 
was  a  kindly  man,  though  utterly  unable  to  act  on 
his  own  responsibility  even  in  so  small  a  matter,  I 
consented  to  go  back  the  way  I  had  come,  not, 
however,  without  some  misgivings  concerning  the 
prospect  of  another  week  on  the  new  railway. 

As  I  had  come  without  permission  I  had  to 
depart  in  the  same  way,  and  there  was  still  a  danger 
of  being  stopped  on  my  way  back  at  Tieh-ling,  where 
the  Governor-Generals  jurisdiction  ended  and  the 
admiral’s  began,  a  possibility  which  was  in  fact 
almost  realised,  so  that  I  was  near  to  ending  my 
days  in  travelling  up  and  down  an  unballasted 
railway  buffeted  to  and  fro  between  Kharbin  and 
Tieh-ling. 

The  return  journey  to  Tieh-ling  need  not  be 
described  in  detail.  Trains  were  now  running  right 


82 


KHARBIN 


through  from  the  second  Sungari  bridge,  which  is 
about  seventy  miles  south  of  Kharbin,  to  Port 
Arthur.  The  river  had  still  to  be  crossed  by  a 
ferry,  or  rather  by  means  of  a  long  canoe-shaped 
boat  peculiar  to  this  part  of  the  country,  and  about 
as  ill-adapted  to  the  passage  of  a  swift  deep  river 
as  any  craft  could  be.  As  the  river  was  high  and 
swollen  with  the  rains,  both  my  Chinese  boy  and 
myself  were  extremely  glad  to  reach  the  south  bank 
in  safety.  There  we  with  difficulty  got  shelter  in 
a  muddy  hovel,  which  was  facetiously  labelled 
“  Gostinitza,”  and  was  crowded  to  overflowing  by 
the  lower  order  of  railway  men  and  Russian  pedlars. 
The  promised  through  train  did  not  arrive  until  late 
next  day,  so  that  we  had  ample  time  to  inspect  and 
photograph  the  great  bridge  which  was  then  in 
process  of  construction  ;  and  when  the  train  did 
arrive  it  consisted  only  of  freight  waggons,  into 
which  the  ubiquitous  Chinese  coolies  packed  them¬ 
selves  so  tight  that  the  few  Europeans  had  no  space 
to  sit  down.  The  railway  employees  rather  favoured 
this  state  of  things  because  the  Europeans  knew  that 
they  had  no  fares  to  pay,  while  the  Chinese  were 
forced  to  give  up  a  sum  equivalent  to  one  shilling 
for  every  stage  of  thirty  versts.  In  this  way  the 
train  conductors  reaped  a  nice  little  harvest.  But 
it  struck  the  outsider  as  rather  curious  that  Russians 
— even  of  the  lowest  order — should  allow  themselves 
to  be  crowded  out  by  Chinese  coolies.  Such  a  thing 
could  not  have  happened  anywhere  else  in  China, 
where  the  foreigners  would  have  belonged  to  another 
nationality,  and  would  no  more  have  thought  of 


KHARBIN 


8$ 


travelling  on  the  same  truck  with  Chinese  coolies 
than  a  Southerner  in  the  United  States  would  think 
of  sitting  down  to  dinner  with  a  negro. 

I  experienced  a  similar  shock  when  I  saw  Russian 
women  and  girls  belonging  to  Cossack  families 
selling  bread  and  “  kvass  ”  (the  Russian  equivalent 
for  beer)  to  these  same  coolies  at  the  various  stop¬ 
ping  places.  The  theory  that  one  man  is  as  good  as 
another  is  one  which  has  never  had  any  vogue 
among  the  Europeans  who  settle  in  China.  On 
the  river  boats  and  the  coasting  steamers  the 
Chinese  of  the  lower  classes  of  course  are  kept 
apart,  but  even  the  Mandarins  are  not  often  seen 
in  the  European  quarters,  separate  accommodation 
being  almost  invariably  provided  for  them.  I  daresay 
the  feeling  which  keeps  the  races  apart  is  mutual, 
but  there  is  at  least  a  reason  for  it  on  our  side, 
because  the  unredeemed  Chinaman,  be  he  merchant 
or  prince — and  he  is  nearly  always  unredeemed — is 
not  a  pleasant  stable  companion. 

The  Russians  not  only  are  devoid  of  this  intense 
race  antagonism,  but  they  are  proud  of  the  fact, 
and  never  miss  an  opportunity  of  letting  the  Chinese 
know  it,  and  for  that  very  reason  they  have  a 
certain  advantage  in  dealing  with  the  people  of  the 
Middle  Kingdom.  It  is  of  no  importance  to  decide 
which  kind  of  treatment  pays  best.  It  is  not  a 
question  of  right  or  wrong,  or  even  one  of  expediency. 
Intimacy  with  the  Chinese  is  for  us,  and  for  most 
white  races,  an  impossibility  ;  for  the  Russians  it  is 
not,  and  that  is  the  end  of  it.  Writing  at  this 
distance  I  cannot  see  anything  at  all  extraordinary 


84 


KHARBIN 


or  contrary  to  nature  in  the  mere  fact  that  white 
women  were  found  serving  out  food  and  drink  to 
Chinese  coolies  at  a  profit.  But  I  know  that  at 
the  time,  coming  fresh  from  other  parts  of  China, 
and  feeling  towards  the  Chinese  as  the  Anglo-Saxon 
cannot  help  feeling,  though  he  may  in  the  abstract 
like  the  Chinese  and  admire  many  of  their  qualities, 
I  was  much  impressed  by  this  apparently  trifling 
episode,  and  saw  in  it  one  reason  at  all  events  for 
the  extraordinary  power  which  Russia  is  able  to 
exert  over  China. 

Our  journey  to  Tieh-ling,  which  was  otherwise 
uneventful,  occupied  four  days  and  nights,  during 
which  one  had  to  make  shift  to  sleep  in  a  Russian 
inn,  a  Chinese  hut,  and  an  open  truck,  the  truck 
being  infinitely  the  most  comfortable.  In  the  mean, 
time  the  rains  fell  in  unheard-of  quantities  ;  twenty- 
five  inches  came  down  in  two  weeks,  and  from 
Tieh-ling  south  to  New-chwang  every  temporary 
bridge  and  culvert  was  swept  away,  and  traffic  was 
suspended  for  several  weeks. 

On  arriving  at  Tieh-ling  in  a  truck  with  two 
Russian  officers  I  was  indiscreet  enough  to  accom¬ 
pany  them  to  an  officers’  mess  near  the  railway 
station,  which  we  discovered  while  searching  for 
breakfast.  Both  breakfast  and  vodka  were  forth¬ 
coming  after  the  usual  fashion  of  Russian  hospi¬ 
tality,  but  very  soon  my  presence  began  to  excite 
comment,  and  when  I  rose  to  leave  the  company  I 
was  pressed,  rather  ominously,  to  stay.  I  then 
pleaded  a  desire  to  call  on  the  manager  of  the  Russo- 
Chinese  Bank,  whom  I  had  met  on  the  way  north. 


KHARBIN 


85 


An  officer  insisted  on  accompanying  me  through 
the  rain,  though  the  bank  was  only  a  few  yards 
away.  During  my  visit  he  conversed  in  Russian 
with  the  man  in  the  bank,  and  it  was  he  and  not  I 
who  gave  the  signal  to  go. 

On  returning  to  the  officers  mess  I  was  requested 
to  wait  in  the  pantry  while  my  companion  went  to 
explain  matters  to  the  commandant.  Plainly  I  was 
under  arrest.  Pretending,  however,  not  to  under¬ 
stand  what  was  said,  I  walked  by  myself  into  the 
mess-room,  and  sat  down  as  before,  but  noticed  that 
this  time  my  entrance  produced  a  silence.  By-and- 
by  the  commandant  came  into  the  room,  kpoke  a 
few  words,  and  the  air  immediately  cleared.  I  was 
pressed  to  stay  for  a  birthday  dinner  given  in  honour 
of  the  commandant,  and  good  fellowship  once  more 
reigned. 

Evidently  the  bank  manager  had  satisfied  all 
inquiries,  though,  as  I  afterwards  discovered,  he  did 
so  quite  unwittingly.  He  told  me  next  day  that  he 
had  described  me  as  some  kind  of  missionary.  Had 
he  known  my  real  calling,  he  was  good  enough  to 
add,  he  would  certainly  have  had  me  arrested. 
Meanwhile  the  birthday  dinner  waxed  fast  and 
furious,  and  when  the  commandant  discovered,  at 
about  the  end  of  the  third  course,  my  true  profession 
he  was  much  too  hospitable  to  pay  any  attention  to 
it.  The  banquet  lasted  well  into  the  afternoon, 
and  in  the  evening  I  was  permitted  to  return  to 
my  truck  without  surveillance.  On  the  following 
morning  I  felt  that  I  would  rather  have  been 
arrested. 


86 


KHARBIN 


My  position  was  none  the  less  sufficiently  critical. 
The  hilarity — not  to  use  a  stronger  term — of  my 
hosts  of  the  previous  afternoon  had  induced  them 
to  accept  the  presence  of  an  English  newspaper 
correspondent  as  an  everyday  event,  which  it 
assuredly  was  not.  I  could  not  tell  how  long  the 
effects  of  this  hilarity  would  last,  nor  what  steps 
might  be  taken  to  hinder  my  further  progress.  If 
the  railway  had  been  in  good  working  order  I  could 
have  slipped  away  unnoticed,  but  the  torrential 
rains  had  put  all  traffic  on  the  line  out  of  the  ques¬ 
tion  for  at  least  three  weeks  and  the  roads  were  alto¬ 
gether  impassable  ;  in  fact,  as  I  discovered  later  on, 
nearly  the  whole  valley  of  the  Liao  from  Tieh-lung 
downwards  was  six  feet  under  water.  What  made 
my  situation  more  precarious  was  the  fact  that  on 
calling  a  second  time  on  my  young  friend  in  the 
bank  I  disclosed  to  him  my  identity  and  with 
difficulty  prevented  his  going  immediately  to  head¬ 
quarters  with  the  news.  His  zealous  desire  to 
see  me  arrested  was  only  checked  by  my  telling 
him  that  I  had  dined  with  the  commandant  in 
my  capacity  as  Morning  Post  correspondent,  and 
arguing  that  as  long  as  the  commandant  was 
satisfied  there  could  be  no  objection  to  my  presence. 
This  was  a  good  point — though  I  did  not  feel 
bound  to  add  that  the  commandant  had  been  too 
much  engaged  in  his  birthday  festivities  to  pay 
much  attention  to  the  status  of  his  guests — at  least, 
it  effected  my  purpose  for  the  moment ;  but  I  was 
not  at  all  sure  how  long  it  would  hold  good.  I  was 
much  relieved,  therefore,  when  the  engineer  with 


KHARBIN 


87 


whom  we  had  travelled  north,  and  who  was  now, 
like  myself,  trying  to  get  down  to  New-chwang, 
came  over  to  my  truck  and  invited  me  to  accom¬ 
pany  him  by  river  on  the  following  day. 

He  told  me  that  Colonel  Genke,  who  was  policing 
the  river,  was  at  that  moment  on  his  way  down 
stream  with  a  force  of  seventy  men,  acting  as 
protection  against  the  Hun-hu-tzes  to  a  large 
number  of  Chinese  craft  laden  with  the  beans  of 
the  previous  year.  The  colonel  had  pressed  the 
engineer  to  go  with  him,  and  the  engineer  passed 
on  the  invitation  to  myself.  And  I  in  turn 
received  it  very  gratefully,  refusing  to  listen  to 
the  warnings  of  my  Chinese  boy,  who  thought  it 
little  short  of  madness  to  risk  a  daily  encounter 
with  the  redoubtable  brigands  of  Manchuria,  of  whom 
we  had  heard  so  much  and  seen  so  little  in  our 
travels.  Personally,  I  was  not  only  thankful  to  get 
away  from  the  rather  stifling  atmosphere  of  Tieh- 
ling,  but  glad  to  have  an  opportunity  of  learning 
something  about  the  river  and  the  brigands  and 
the  Russian  method  of  dealing  with  both.  The 
Russian  officers  in  Tieh-ling  had  regaled  me  with 
wonderful  stories  of  these  warriors  and  tales  of 
fierce  encounters.  Similar  stories  were  current  in 
New-chwang  and  elsewhere — but  I  had  never  yet 
come  across  a  brigand  or  seen  a  single  Russian 
officer  or  soldier  who  had  been  wounded  in  these 
frequent  engagements.  The  river  expedition  pro¬ 
mised  to  throw  light  upon  these  points ;  so  it 
was  with  pleasant  anticipations  that  I  waded 
through  water  up  to  my  waist  for  two  miles  until 


88 


KHARBIN 


I  came  to  the  river,  where  Colonel  Genke,  the  most 
hospitable  of  men,  was  sitting  in  the  stern  of  a 
junk  adding  up  accounts  and  drinking  tea. 

His  first  question  revealed  the  fact  that  the 
engineer  had  been  mistaken  as  to  my  profession. 
44  You  are  a  banker,”  said  the  colonel,  44  so  you  can 
tell  me  the  price  for  a  4  diao.’  ”  When  I  told  him 
that  I  was  not  a  banker  but  the  correspondent  of  a 
London  newspaper,  his  face  fell  for  a  moment.  But 
then,  seeing  that  he  had  me  there  and  could  not 
very  well  get  rid  of  me,  and  judging,  no  doubt, 
that  I  could  not  have  been  there  except  under 
proper  auspices,  he  took  quite  the  right  view  of  the 
situation. 

44  ThatJ  is  splendid,”  he  said.  t£  Now  you  will  be 
able  to  tell  them  in  London  that  we  Russians  are 
not  so  black  as  we  are  painted.  You  will  have  no 
objection  to  showing  me  your  notes  as  we  go 
along?” 

44  None  whatever,”  I  replied. 

44  And  I  take  it  that  you  will  make  one  set  of 
notes  for  my  perusal  and  another  for  your  editor  ?  ” 

44  Exactly  so,”  I  answered. 

44  Then  that  is  all  settled.  You  and  Mr. 
M’Naughton,  my  interpreter,  will  occupy  one  half 
of  my  junk,  while  I  occupy  the  other.  I  am  sure 
we  shall  be  good  friends.” 

And  so  we  were.  For  I  found  that  Colonel 
Genke  was  not  only  a  man  of  war,  but  a  nephew  of 
the  great  Tschaikowsky,  and  himself  an  accomplished 
musician,  an  excellent  scholar,  and,  what  was  much 
to  the  point,  a  fluent  linguist  who  spoke  English 


KHARBIN 


89 


better  than  most  Englishmen.  He  was  reading 
“  Vanity  Fair”  for  the  fifth  time,  and  was  familiar 
with  every  character  in  Dickens  and  Thackeray, 
while  his  knowledge  of  Shakespeare  put  both  myself 
and  the  missionary,  who  was  interpreting  for  him, 
to  shame.  With  such  a  companion  it  was  pleasant 
to  travel  in  any  circumstances,  but  particularly 
pleasant  to  get  away  from  the  officialdom  and  red 
tape  of  Tieh-ling  and  live  for  a  short  time  the  free 
and  rather  exciting  life  of  the  river. 

I  have  gone  at  some  length  into  my  personal 
experiences  on  the  railway  because  they  throw  a 
considerable  light  upon  the  position  of  the  Russians 
in  Manchuria  at  the  time.  Now,  of  course,  all  is 
changed.  Even  an  Englishman  can  travel  without 
let  or  hindrance  from  Port  Arthur  to  St.  Petersburg  ; 
the  railway  is  in  good  working  order,  and  the 
Russians  are  doing  their  best  to  popularise  the 
route.  Yet  only  two  years  ago  neither  an  Eng- 
lishman  nor  any  other  foreigner  could  travel  in 
Manchuria  beyond  Mukden,  and  the  Russians  were 
asserting  prerogatives  to  which  they  had  no  shadow 
of  claim.  They  used  to  explain  their  attitude  by 
maintaining  that  Manchuria  was  in  a  state  of  war, 
and  that  just  as  Great  Britain  would  not  allow 
Russian  officers  or  correspondents  to  run  about  the 
Transvaal  without  special  permits,  so  it  was  absurd 
to  allow  British  officers  or  civilians  to  pass  through 
Manchuria. 

The  argument  was  obviously  fallacious.  There 
was  no  comparison  between  fighting  Hun-hu-tzes 
and  campaigning  against  the  Boers.  Nor  was 


90 


KHARBIN 


Russia  at  war  with  the  governing  power  in  Man¬ 
churia  ;  she  was  merely,  along  with  the  other  foreign 
nations,  helping  the  Chinese  Government  to  quell 
its  own  disturbances.  She  was  not,  nominally  at 
least,  the  only  Power  interested  in  Manchuria ;  and 
British  or  German  officers  had  as  much  right  to 
traverse  Manchuria  as  Russian  officers  had  to  go  to 
Paoting-fu.  In  point  of  fact,  of  course,  her  position 
in  Manchuria  was  quite  different  to  that  of  any 
other  Power  in  China ;  and  whatever  theories  we 
might  hold  to  the  contrary,  we  did  actually  acknow¬ 
ledge  that  position  by  our  tacit  acquiescence. 
Personally,  I  never  asked  for  assistance  from  my 
own  Government,  nor  had  I,  as  a  civilian,  any 
particular  claims  upon  its  support.  But  an  officer, 
and  especially  an  officer  in  the  position  of  Colonel 
Powell,  could  not  be  treated  as  an  ordinary 
civilian.  When,  therefore,  our  Government  allowed 
the  Russians  to  turn  him  back  and  left  to  them  the 
undisputed  power  to  control  the  movement  of  all 
foreigners  in  Manchuria,  the  effect  was  exactly 
equivalent  to  the  hoisting  of  the  Russian  flag  over 
the  country.  Manchuria  was  two  years  before 
acknowledged  to  be  the  Russian  sphere  of  influence  ; 
but  equally  the  Yangtze  valley  was  our  sphere  of 
influence.  Yet  we  should  never  have  dreamed  of 
preventing  other  foreigners  from  travelling  on  the 
river,  nor  could  we  oppose  the  landing  of  French 
and  German  troops  at  Shanghai.  I  do  not  say  that 
we  should  have  been  justified  in  imitating  Russian 
tactics,  nor  yet  that  we  were  bound  to  raise  a  pro¬ 
test  against  these  tactics.  The  point  is  simply  this  : 


KHARBIN 


91 


that  although  throughout  this  period  we  were  con¬ 
stantly  holding  up  the  integrity  of  the  Chinese 
Empire  as  the  corner-stone  of  our  policy  in  the  Far 
East,  and  were  officially  pretending  that  Russia 
must  immediately  evacuate  Manchuria,  we  were  at 
the  same  time  condoning  a  number  of  acts  which 
plainly  showed  that  Manchuria  was  no  longer  a 
portion  of  the  Chinese  Empire,  and  that  Russia  had 
no  intention  whatever  of  giving  it  up.  Every  day 
we  were  tacitly  granting  to  Russia  a  prescriptive 
title  to  the  three  Eastern  Provinces,  and  no  subse¬ 
quent  protest  could  be  advanced  with  any  show  of 
reason  or  statesmanship. 


CHAPTER  VII 


FIGHTING  THE  BRIGANDS 

The  expedition,  which  was  under  the  command  of 
Colonel  Genke,  consisted  of  eight  junks,  carrying 
Russian  soldiers,  with  three  officers,  and  a  naval 
one-pounder  in  the  bows  of  the  colonel’s  junk.  We 
had  in  all  about  seventy  men,  and  in  addition  there 
were  a  few  junk-loads  of  Chinese  soldiers,  under  the 
command  of  a  Chinese  magistrate  named  Yao,  who 
acted  as  military  officer,  judge,  chief  of  intelligence, 
head  of  the  commissariat  department,  and  general 
factotum. 

If  scouting  was  to  be  done,  Yao  went  ahead  in 
his  flagship  ;  if  brigands  were  to  be  caught,  it  was 
Yao  who  ran  them  to  earth ;  when  the  trial  came 
Yao  conducted  the  prosecution,  sat  on  the  bench, 
and  gave  the  verdict ;  Yao’s  minions  scoured  the 
country  for  information  ;  and  at  councils  of  war 
Yao  drew  plans  of  attack  with  his  forefinger  in  the 
mud  and  suggested  cunning  wiles  for  the  snaring  of 
the  Hun-hu-tze.  If  you  wanted  anything,  from  a 
junk  to  a  water-melon,  Yao  was  summoned  and  the 
necessary  article  was  generally  forthcoming. 

He  was  a  spare  little  man,  with  soft  manners  and 
a  hare-lip,  which  added  somehow  to  the  indecision 
of  his  outward  appearance.  Though  he  wore  no 


FIGHTING  THE  BRIGANDS 


93 


beard,  his  hair  was  streaked  with  grey  sufficiently 
to  show  that  he  had  reached  an  age  when  most  of 
his  class  are  gross  and  unwieldy,  and  unable  to  walk 
a  step  beyond  the  walls  of  their  yamens.  In  spite 
of  his  wheedling  and  garrulous  method  of  speech, 
one  soon  began  to  respect  the  little  man,  who,  at  an 
age  certainly  past  fifty,  had  forsaken  the  easy  task 
of  city  magistracy  for  the  roving  life  of  the  river, 
where  he  was  up  at  daybreak  on  the  hunt  for 
brigands,  and  seldom  found  his  various  duties  at  an 
end  until  long  after  dark. 

Colonel  Genke  was  also  assisted  by  Mr.  M‘Naugh- 
ton,  of  the  Scottish  Presbyterian  Mission,  who 
accompanied  the  expedition  as  interpreter  in  order 
to  obviate  the  difficulties  which  arise  through  the 
use  of  the  rascally  Chinese  interpreters,  who  are 
far  more  of  a  scourge  to  their  countrymen  than 
any  foreign  soldier  has  ever  been.  Mr.  M‘Naughton 
was  an  excellent  specimen  of  muscular  Christianity, 
and,  in  common  with  most  of  his  Irish  and  Scottish 
colleagues  in  Manchuria,  seemed  to  take  a  far  wider 
and  more  intelligent  view  of  Chinese  affairs  than 
the  majority  of  Protestant  missionaries  in  China 
proper.  Not  only  his  knowledge  of  the  language, 
but  also  his  experience  in  dealing  with  Chinese 
character,  must  have  been  of  great  service  to  the 
colonel. 

The  object  of  Colonel  Genke’s  mission  was  not  at 
all  to  fight  Hun-hu-tzes,  but  rather  to  organise  the 
native  Militia  along  the  banks  of  the  river,  and 
incidentally  to  escort  any  bean-junks  which  cared 
to  avail  themselves  of  the  opportunity  down  to 


94 


FIGHTING  THE  BRIGANDS 


New-chwang.  To  make  any  real  impression  on  the 
robbers  a  far  larger  force  would  have  been  necessary, 
and  longer  time  would  have  been  required.  If  the 
colonel  had  landed  his  men  to  chase  brigands  every 
time  the  boats  were  fired  on  we  should  have  been 
in  the  upper  reaches  of  the  Liao  at  the  present 
moment. 

For  my  own  part,  though  I  was  in  a  hurry  to 
reach  New-chwang,  I  was  glad  to  have  ocular 
demonstration  of  the  work  that  is  being  done  by 
the  Russians  on  the  river.  It  was  constantly 
suggested  at  New-chwang  that  the  Russians  pur¬ 
posely  left  the  river  unprotected,  partly  because 
they  wanted  to  force  the  Chinese  to  send  their  pro¬ 
duce  by  rail,  and  partly  because  the  continued 
disturbance  in  the  country  caused  by  the  brigands 
provided  a  sufficient  excuse  for  their  occupation  of 
Manchuria. 

For  the  first  alleged  reason  there  is  really  no 
foundation  whatever,  for  the  carrying  power  of  the 
railway  is  already  overtaxed,  and  will  always  be  so 
in  such  a  rich  country  until  new  lines  are  built. 
The  second  reason  has  some  inherent  probability, 
but  it  requires  modification.  To  police  the  three 
hundred  miles  of  river  between  Tieh-ling  and 
New-chwang  in  a  thoroughly  effective  manner 
would  be  both  troublesome  and  expensive,  and 
it  would  be  extremely  unreasonable  to  expect  the 
Russians  to  incur  such  trouble  and  expense  for  the 
sake  of  a  trade  in  which  they  have  no  interest. 

As  long,  therefore,  as  it  is  understood  that  Russia 
must  evacuate  Manchuria  the  Russian  Government 


FIGHTING  THE  BRIGANDS 


95 


will  take  no  serious  steps  to  put  down  piracy  away 
from  the  vicinity  of  the  railway.  It  would  be 
quixotic  and  foolish  to  act  in  any  other  way ;  but 
granted  the  control  of  Manchuria  and  the  Port  of 
New-chwang,  the  Russians  immediately  acquire  a 
stake  in  the  country,  and  it  will  be  to  their  interest 
to  clear  the  river. 

In  other  words,  the  situation  amounts  to  this. 
If,  by  exerting  combined  pressure,  we  turn  the 
Russians  out  of  Manchuria,  or  at  least  out  of 
New-chwang,  the  country  must  remain  unsettled. 
The  Chinese  cannot  settle  it,  and  no  one  else  but 
the  Russians  will  try.  If  we  let  the  Russians  keep 
New-chwang  they  will  set  to  work  in  earnest  to 
get  rid  of  all  robbers  and  brigands.  Some  people 
imagine  that  they  are  incapable  of  accomplishing 
the  task  ;  but  this  is  not  the  case,  since  they  have 
rendered  the  railway  territory  perfectly  secure  in  a 
very  short  time. 

As  long  as  the  matter  is  undecided,  Russian  policy 
on  the  river  exactly  corresponds  to  the  general 
situation.  They  do  not  patrol  the  river,  but  they 
make  it  sufficiently  secure  to  enable  the  boats  to  get 
up  and  down  without  serious  loss  ;  and  this  they  do 
because  it  brings  money  into  the  coffers  of  the 
Chinese  native  customs  at  New-chwang,  which 
money  is  collected  for  the  Russian  Administration 
and  goes  into  the  pockets,  legitimately,  of  course,  of 
the  various  Russian  officials.  That  their  control  of 
the  river  has  been  sufficient  for  the  purpose  is  proved 
by  the  fact  that  in  1901  the  native  customs  had 
collected  180,000  taels  for  the  first  half  of  the  year, 


96 


FIGHTING  THE  BRIGANDS 


almost  a  record  harvest,  which  served  to  pay  nice 
salaries  to  the  civil  administrator  and  his  coadjutors. 

It  will  he  seen,  therefore,  that  the  military  policy 
of  the  Russians  on  the  river  is  dictated  entirely  by 
expediency  and  reason,  and  I  was  able  to  observe 
that  Colonel  Genke  left  no  stone  unturned  to  make 
his  mission  effective  to  the  limit  of  his  instructions, 
and  even,  perhaps,  a  little  beyond  the  spirit  of  those 
instructions.  The  best  proof  of  the  usefulness  of 
his  work  is  the  fact  that,  having  started  with  over 
a  thousand  bean-junks  from  Tieh-ling,  we  picked  up 
new  fleets  on  the  way  down  until  we  brought  some 
five  thousand  junks  into  New-chwang.  Of  these 
probably  not  more  than  five  per  cent,  were  robbed 
at  all,  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that  three-fourths  of  the 
number  would  have  remained  up  the  river  if  the 
colonel’s  expedition  had  not  been  undertaken.  On 
this  occasion  alone  we  took  $  1 50,000,  on  a  very 
moderate  computation,  out  of  the  pockets  of  the 
robbers,  and  the  price  of  beans  in  New-chwang 
dropped  14  per  cent,  in  two  days. 

With  regard  to  the  Hun-hu-tzes  (the  term  is  now 
used  generically  for  all  robbers  or  pirates),  this  year 
only  differed  in  degree  from  all  the  years  which  pre¬ 
ceded  it  since  Chinese  history  began  in  Manchuria. 
In  ordinary  times  the  tax  levied  by  these  brigands 
is  not  very  great,  or  at  least  not  prohibitive,  because 
the  whole  matter  has  reached  the  state  of  permanent 
compromise  so  dearly  loved  by  the  Chinese. 

It  is  a  state  of  live  and  let  live,  in  which  there  is 
no  real  dividing-line  between  the  pirate  and  the 
official.  The  Hun-hu-tze  squares  the  merchant,  and 


TYPICAL  MANCHURIAN  LANDSCAPE 


FIGHTING  THE  BRIGANDS 


97 


the  merchant  squares  the  magistrate,  and  a  man 
may  be  magistrate,  merchant,  and  master  pirate  by 
turns  or  all  at  one  time.  If  a  boatman  pays  his 
insurance-money  at  New-chwang  he  is  safe  for  the 
journey ;  or  if  he  prefers  to  pay  his  money  at  the 
river  bank  he  is  only  charged  a  slightly  higher  tariff, 
and  his  person  and  cargo  are  alike  secure  from  harm 
as  long  as  he  observes  the  rules  of  the  road  and  does 
not  try  to  cheat  the  pirate  of  his  due.  One  dis¬ 
tinguishes  immediately  the  boats  which  are  insured 
by  a  special  flag,  with  characters  on  it,  at  the  stern. 
This  flag  protects  the  boat  for  a  certain  distance  or 
for  the  whole  journey,  as  the  case  may  be.  The 
insurance- offices  have  their  headquarters  at  New- 
chwang,  or  in  other  large  towns  like  Tieh-ling,  in 
the  houses  of  the  leading  merchants,  who  exact  their 
commission  and  hand  over  the  principal  sum  to  the 
agents  of  the  robbers.  At  New-chwang  there  are 
several  hundred  rich  men  dressed  in  silks  and  satins, 
moving  in  the  best  Chinese  society,  who  make  their 
living  entirely  by  piracy. 

As  for  the  boatmen,  they  regard  the  blackmail 
exactly  as  they  regard  likin  or  any  other  tax.  One 
robber  with  a  gun  appearing  on  the  bank  of  the 
river  is  quite  enough  to  stop  fifty  boats.  A  shot  is 
fired  to  bring  the  boats  to,  the  robber  goes  through 
the  boats,  exacting  five  or  ten  dollars  a  boat,  or 
possibly  a  smaller  sum,  and  the  junkmen  haggle 
and  talk  a  great  deal,  but  they  never  dream  of 
active  resistance.  That  is  the  chronic  state  of 
affairs.  This  year  matters  were  different  only  be¬ 
cause  the  number  of  pirates  was  enormously  increased 

Cr 


98 


FIGHTING  THE  BRIGANDS 


by  swarms  of  disbanded  soldiers  who  did  not  belong 
to  the  regular  pirate  bands.  They  were  self- 
appointed  brigands,  who  had  introduced  bad  habits 
of  brutality  and  extortion,  which  had  rendered  the 
burden  on  the  boatmen  almost  intolerable.  For  a 
time,  therefore,  traffic  was  at  a  standstill,  and  Hun- 
hu-tze  hunting  became  a  dangerous  sport.  The 
Chinese  boatmen,  who  never  before  refused  to  pay 
blackmail,  were  irritated  by  finding  that  their  in¬ 
surance  flags  were  not  respected,  and  in  attempting 
to  escape  too  frequent  payments  they  offended  the 
robbers  and  were  fired  on  in  earnest,  often  with 
fatal  results. 

The  local  headmen  of  the  villages  were  at  first 
powerless  to  mitigate  the  evil  because  they  were 
forbidden  by  the  Russians  to  possess  firearms,  and 
in  many  cases  the  Tuan-lien,  or  village  militia,  are 
as  great  a  scourge  as  the  robbers  themselves.  In 
fact,  it  is  not  unusual  for  the  militia  to  be  composed 
of  Hun-hu-tzes.  In  ordinary  cases  the  young  men 
of  the  village  volunteer  for  this  military  service,  but 
where  there  are  not  young  men  enough  it  is  some¬ 
times  necessary  to  hire  the  services  of  transient 
robbers,  who  are  then  given  a  grant  of  land  and 
become  in  theory  peaceful  cultivators  of  the  soil. 
In  practice,  however,  they  often,  under  the  guise  of 
militia,  revert  to  their  former  more  lucrative  pro¬ 
fession.  In  fact,  the  state  of  the  country  was  in 
1901  becoming  about  as  bad  as  it  could  be. 

It  was  Colonel  Genke’s  mission  to  organise  as  far 
as  possible  these  village  Tuan-lien,  to  stamp  their 
rifles,  to  find  out  how  far  they  were  doing  their 


FIGHTING  THE  BRIGANDS 


99 


duty,  to  hear  complaints,  and  generally  to  overlook 
the  policing  of  the  river,  which,  nevertheless,  was 
to  be  left  almost  entirely  to  the  Chinese  authorities, 
of  whom  the  chief  was  our  friend  Yao.  The  Russian 
soldiers  were  merely  for  the  protection  of  the  expedi¬ 
tion  itself  and  the  boats  which  accompanied  us  down 
stream. 

I  confess  that  I  was  surprised  to  find  how  preva¬ 
lent  the  Hun-hu-tzes  really  were.  During  the  first 
day  or  two  there  were  continual  encounters  with 
robbers  on  the  bank,  always  of  a  somewhat  unsatis¬ 
factory  nature.  Though  they  must  have  known  of 
our  coming,  small  bodies  endeavoured  with  the 
greatest  confidence  to  44  hold  up  ”  the  junks  under 
our  care.  In  such  a  crowd  of  sails  it  was  impossible 
for  them  to  distinguish  at  first  the  foreigners’  junks, 
as  the  soldiers  were  in  loose  cotton  clothes  which 
were  not  at  all  conspicuous.  The  usual  methods 
were  employed,  but  when  the  robbers  saw  the  boats, 
instead  of  coming  to  the  bank,  go  boldly  ahead,  they 
first  began  to  fire  in  earnest,  and  then  probably 
discovered  their  mistake. 

When  firing  began  a  way  would  be  made  for  the 
Russian  junks,  and  as  soon  as  the  jacket  could  be 
removed  from  our  one-pounder  the  river  was  alive 
with  the  noise  of  bursting  shells  and  rapid  volleys. 
The  first  shell  was  generally  sufficient  to  show  the 
Hun-hu-tzes  that  for  once  they  had  attacked  the 
wrong  party.  The  miniature  battle  would  soon  be 
over,  because  the  swiftness  of  the  current  carried  our 
boats  quickly  past  the  point  of  attack,  and  it  was 
never  worth  while  to  pole  up  stream.  For  this 


100 


FIGHTING  THE  BRIGANDS 


reason  the  Hun-hu-tzes  would  occasionally  emerge 
from  the  gow-liang  (giant  millet)  after  we  had 
passed  and  impudently  fall  on  the  defenceless  rear 
of  the  convoy  ;  once  or  twice  they  even  saluted  the 
Russian  boats  with  a  parting  volley ;  but,  as  a  rule, 
the  gun  frightened  them  sorely,  and  they  were 
rendered  harmless  for  the  day. 

It  is  not  very  satisfactory  work  firing  volleys  into 
the  standing  crops  which  entirely  conceal  your 
adversaries.  Only  once  did  we  have  a  chance  of 
pretty  artillery  practice,  when  a  band  of  mounted 
robbers  had  to  cross  a  bare  slope  in  their  flight  about 
a  mile  back  from  the  river.  As  the  shells  of  the 
one-pounder  burst  among  them  our  Chinese  steers¬ 
man  declared  that  he  could  see  horses  and  riders 
bowled  to  earth,  but  my  field-glasses  were  not 
strong  enough  to  allow  me  to  corroborate  the 
statement. 

On  another  occasion  firing  opened  from  a  village 
just  at  dusk  when  we  were  about  to  stop  for  the 
night.  The  men  were  landed  and  drawn  up  quickly 
in  two  bodies,  each  under  an  officer,  and  then  away 
they  went  through  the  village  in  two  different 
directions.  Naturally  there  was  nothing  but  here 
and  there  an  old  man  or  a  few  children  to  be  found, 
so  we  dashed  through  the  gow-liang ,  the  soldiers’ 
white  clothes  making  splendid  targets  in  the  semi¬ 
darkness,  until,  a  shot  or  two  being  fired  by  robbers, 
a  volley  immediately  whistled  through  the  goiv-liang 
in  our  direction,  coming  evidently  from  the  other 
search  party.  Being,  therefore,  in  greater  danger 
from  our  own  men  than  from  robbers,  we  made  our 


FIGHTING  THE  BRIGANDS 


101 


way  back  to  the  bank,  only  to  find  that  the  redoubt¬ 
able  Yao  had  captured  six  culprits  without  going 
more  than  a  hundred  yards  from  the  river.  This 
was,  indeed,  the  usual  result ;  for  it  is  quite 
impossible  for  a  Russian  to  tell  a  peaceful  villager 
from  a  bandit  unless  he  catches  his  man  in  the  act 
of  firing.  The  Chinaman  plunges  into  a  gow-liang 
field  on  one  side  a  robber  and  comes  out  on  the 
other  a  harmless  farmer,  having  divested  himself  of 
rifle  and  cartridge-belt  in  transit. 

One  day,  as  we  were  landing  for  luncheon  at  about 
noon,  we  surprised  a  solitary  bandit  who,  apparently, 
was  watching  the  boats  go  down  at  his  ease,  perhaps 
unable  to  select  his  prey  amid  such  an  embarrass¬ 
ment  of  riches.  At  our  approach  he  bolted,  leaving 
his  horse  and  rifle  in  our  hands.  The  soldiers  beat 
the  gow-liang  for  him  and  got  very  hot,  while  Yao 
went  quietly  to  his  house  in  a  neighbouring  village 
and  arrested  him.  There  was  no  doubt  about  his 
guilt  apparently,  but  Yao  went  through  the  usual 
form  of  catechism,  which  is  not  pretty  to  see  or  to 
hear  even  at  a  distance.  The  robber  went  by  the 
name  of  the  “Little  Fool,”  it  seemed,  and  the  title 
was  certainly  appropriate.  After  his  trial  he  was 
handed  over  to  the  Tuan-lien  of  the  place  to  be 
taken  to  Mukden.  If  he  ever  got  to  Mukden  he  was 
undoubtedly  shot.  It  is  just  as  likely  that  the 
Tuan-lien  shot  him  after  we  left  or  let  him  go  at 
a  ransom.  All  these  matters  were  left  entirely  to 
Yao  and  the  other  Chinese  authorities,  Colonel 
Genke  only  reserving  the  right  to  veto  a  death 
penalty.  In  this  way  a  sort  of  rough-and-ready 


102 


FIGHTING  THE  BRIGANDS 


justice  is  meted  out ;  but,  however  hot  might  be  the 
chase,  one  felt  sorry  as  soon  as  men  were  captured, 
because  there  was  always  a  chance  that  the  innocent 
would  suffer  instead  of  the  guilty.  Perhaps  one’s 
scruples  were  unnecessary,  because  the  villages 
along  the  river  were  so  much  infected  with  piracy 
that  it  is  almost  impossible  to  sentence  the  wrong 
man. 

Yao  really  did  his  best  to  sift  his  cases  to  the 
bottom,  and  he  often  proved  himself  to  be  an  able 
detective.  One  night  he  had  caught  a  number  of 
men  in  suspicious  circumstances,  and  at  first  we 
thought  they  were  to  be  shot  out  of  hand.  It  was 
rather  ghastly  work  looking  on  by  the  grim  light  of 
a  flickering  lantern  at  the  preliminary  examination 
in  a  Chinese  hut.  Some  were  gaunt  and  haggard 
with  hollow  eyes,  others  seemed  well  fed  and  in¬ 
offensive.  The  magistrate  squatted  in  front  of 
them,  examined  their  faces  and  hands,  peered  into 
their  eyes,  and  smelt  them  one  by  one.  To  our 
relief  three  or  four  nice-looking  men  were  at  once 
weeded  out  and  acquitted.  It  appeared  that  they 
were  theatrical  performers,  who  had  been  delayed 
there  by  the  floods  and  now  found  themselves  in 
danger  of  being  shot.  A  foreigner  could  never  have 
gauged  the  truth  of  their  story,  but  Yao  was  quickly 
convinced  by  a  number  of  minute  signs. 

When  the  obviously  innocent  were  dismissed  the 
more  serious  form  of  trial  began.  It  consisted  in 
picking  out  the  most  likely  man  and  compelling  him 
by  corporal  suasion  to  disclose  the  real  ringleaders. 
At  this  point  it  is  always  well  to  withdraw  from  a 


FIGHTING  THE  BRIGANDS 


103 


Chinese  trial,  and  if  possible  get  out  of  range  of 
hearing.  In  such  a  state  of  society  it  is  probably 
the  only  serviceable  method,  and,  compared  with  the 
horrors  perpetrated  by  these  robbers  on  the  wretched 
villages,  it  is  humanity  itself.  Still,  innocent  men 
may  occasionally  be  beaten  to  death,  and  one  does 
not  care  to  be  in  the  neighbourhood  at  the  time. 

It  should  be  noted  that  on  the  river,  as  in  the 
rest  of  Manchuria,  the  Russians  have  their  men  well 
in  hand.  Whatever  outrages  may  have  been  com¬ 
mitted  during  the  actual  campaign  of  1900,  the 
greatest  care  is  taken  now  to  punish  severely  any 
ill-treatment  of  the  Chinese  on  the  part  of  the 
Russian  soldiers ;  and  the  Chinese  will  tell  you  that 
the  worst  that  ever  befell  them  during  the  Boxer 
troubles  at  the  hands  of  the  foreigners  is  not  to  be 
compared  with  the  cruelty  and  barbarity  which 
their  own  countrymen,  the  disbanded  soldiers,  deal 
out  to  the  unhappy  villages  west  of  the  Liao. 

Farther  down  the  river  the  effect  of  the  recent 
rains  began  to  show  themselves.  The  floods  were 
out,  and  the  embankments  were  often  washed  away, 
so  that  no  robbers  could  get  near  the  river  to  “  hold 
up  ”  the  boats ;  but  as  we  came  nearer  to  the  sea 
stories  were  rife  of  bands  of  pirates,  mostly  Tien¬ 
tsin  men,  who  were  going  about  in  large  junks,  each 
junk  carrying  thirty  or  forty  armed  men  ;  and  we 
heard  of  attacks  on  the  Russian  gun- launch  which 
was  patrolling  the  lower  reaches  and  of  the  capture 
of  three  Russian  soldiers,  two  of  whom  were  killed 
and  one  kept,  not  only  as  a  hostage,  but  also  as  a 
sort  of  decoy  duck.  They  put  him  in  a  conspicuous 


104 


FIGHTING  THE  BRIGANDS 


part  of  the  boat  in  order  to  make  the  bean  men  or 
the  native  militia  think  that  Russian  troops  were 
on  board  and  to  prevent  the  militia  firing.  The 
story  at  first  seemed  to  be  highly  improbable,  but, 
though  it  varied  on  different  occasions,  the  part 
about  the  soldier  was  always  repeated,  until  we 
discovered  in  the  end  that  it  was  actually  true. 
The  soldiers  had  been  apparently  captured  while 
strolling  along  the  bank.  Two  were  killed  and  one 
was  kept  for  the  purpose  described.  We  expected, 
therefore,  to  have  a  real  fight  with  the  pirates ;  but 
on  getting  to  San-she-ho,  where  the  Hun  River  joins 
the  Liao,  we  found  the  country  so  entirely  under 
water  that  it  would  have  been  futile  to  hunt  for  the 
pirate  junks,  which  had  disappeared  at  our  approach. 

There  was  no  other  course  available  but  to  enter 
into  negotiations  with  the  robbers  through  middle¬ 
men  for  the  ransom  of  the  soldier.  The  price  to  be 
paid  was  considerable.  Such,  however,  is  the  luck 
of  the  game. 

As  we  passed  San-she-ho  and  sailed  out  on  to  a 
sea  of  flood  water,  where  everything  was  submerged 
except  the  trees  and  the  larger  villages  which  stood 
on  higher  ground,  the  boatmen  began  to  say  that  it 
was  the  most  disastrous  flood  on  record,  worse  even 
than  the  deluge  of  fourteen  years  ago  ;  but  this 
proved  to  be  an  exaggeration.  Some  hundreds  of 
square  miles  were  under  water,  but  the  natives  said 
that  only  half  the  harvest  would  be  lost  if  the  water 
fell  quickly,  as  it  seemed  inclined  to  do.  Even  this 
was  bad  enough,  coming  as  it  did  after  the  disasters 
of  1900.  For  us  it  provided  a  novel  experience. 


FIGHTING  THE  BRIGANDS 


105 


Leaving  the  river  channel,  with  a  fair  breeze  and 
clear  sky  we  sailed  straight  across  country,  and  a 
wonderful  sight  it  was  to  see  five  thousand  sails 
stretched  from  horizon  to  horizon,  going  past  houses 
and  trees,  and  often  charging  through  the  gow-liang , 
which  still  in  places  showed  four  or  five  feet  above 
the  water.  So,  leaving  the  strife  of  the  river 
behind  us,  we  were  carried  by  a  favouring  gale 
straight  to  the  port,  which  we  reached  on  the 
morning  of  the  sixth  day. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


THE  MILITARY  SITUATION 

In  dealing  with  the  general  situation  in  Manchuria 
as  I  found  it  at  the  time  of  my  journey  there  are 
two  aspects  of  the  question  which  merge  into  one 
another,  but  may  for  convenience’  sake  be  discussed 
under  separate  headings — the  military  aspect  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  political  and  economical  on  the 
other.  The  military  side  of  the  question,  though 
not  in  the  long  run  the  most  important,  is  certainly 
the  most  ^pressing,  and  for  that  reason  it  may  be 
taken  first. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  Russian  occupation  we 
had  to  depend  for  our  knowledge  of  what  was  going 
on  in  the  interior  almost  entirely  upon  reports 
coming  from  New-chwang,  which  in  the  nature  of 
things  could  not  fail  to  be  inaccurate  and  mislead¬ 
ing.  At  the  treaty  port  the  trading  element,  as  in 
most  other  Chinese  treaty  ports,  is  mainly  British, 
and  from  the  very  first  the  British  merchants  have 
been  set  against  the  Russians,  not  only  by  national 
antipathy,  but  also  by  an  idea  that  the  Russians 
mean  to  ruin  New-chwang  for  the  benefit  of  Dalny. 
This  idea  may  now  be  giving  way  to  the  growing 
belief  that  Russia  intends  to  govern  and  develop 
New-chwang  as  well  as  Dalny  ;  but  in  any  case  the 


THE  MILITARY  SITUATION 


107 


position  of  the  British  merchant  is  sufficiently  pre¬ 
carious  to  prevent  his  opinions’  being  strictly  impar¬ 
tial.  The  official  element  among  the  foreigners  was 
not,  when  I  visited  the  port,  of  much  real  service  to 
the  inquirer.  Among  the  consuls  there  was  Mr. 
Hosie,  one  of  the  highest  authorities  in  Manchuria, 
and  one  of  the  ablest  men  in  the  whole  consular  body 
in  China  ;  but  he 'had  only  just  returned  to  duty, 
and  he  was  bound  to  reflect  the  official  views  of  his 
chief  in  Peking.  The  Americans  had  recently  ap¬ 
pointed  a  consul  to  New-chwang — a  step  which 
they  might  have  taken  long  before  with  advantage 
— and  I  found  him  a  man  of  wide  knowledge  and 
broad  views,  but  naturally  a  novice  as  far  as 
Manchuria  was  concerned.  The  Japanese  consul, 
like  most  other  Japanese  officials,  was  marvellously 
discreet,  either  because  he  would  not  or  could 
not  disclose  any  facts  of  importance.  Expressed 
opinion,  therefore,  in  New-chwang  was  mainly 
British,  and  bound  to  be  somewhat  derogatory  to 
the  Russians. 

If  you  believed  all  you  were  told,  Manchuria  was  in 
a  terrible  state,  was  going  from  bad  to  worse,  and 
never  could  be  settled  as  long  as  the  Russians  had 
control  of  it.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  frequently 
asserted  that  the  brigand  trouble  was  mainly 
invented  and  kept  going  by  the  Russians  in  order  to 
excuse  their  continued  occupation  of  the  country. 
The  two  statements  were  not  altogether  consistent, 
and  both  were  coloured  by  an  invincible  prejudice. 

Lastly,  there  was  the  missionary  element,  which 
was,  perhaps,  the  fairest  of  the  three  ;  but  even  here 


108 


THE  MILITARY  SITUATION 


the  outsider  could  not  quite  regard  his  informants  as 
impartial,  because  not  only  have  the  Russians  treated 
certain  missionaries  with  rather  scant  courtesy,  but 
Protestant  missionaries,  at  all  events,  must  be  aware 
that  the  permanent  occupation  of  Manchuria  by 
Russia  must  in  the  long  run  lead  to  the  removal  of 
Protestant  missions. 

It  was  necessary,  therefore,  to  take  everything 
you  heard  in  New-chwang  with  just  the  smallest 
pinch  of  salt  if  it  came  from  British  sources.  If  it 
came  from  Russian  sources  you  were  generally  justi¬ 
fied  in  believing  the  exact  opposite.  This  remark 
may  appear  at  first  sight  to  be  as  prejudiced  as  any 
tale  that  ever  came  from  New-chwang,  but  it  is 
impossible  to  modify  it.  One  day  the  Russians  had 
an  official  report  to  the  effect  that  they  had  sur¬ 
rounded  and  captured  six  thousand  Hun-hu-tzes  in 
the  east  of  the  province,  whom  they  took  prisoners 
and  proceeded  to  drill  as  native  police.  Leaving 
alone  the  fact  that  the  Russians  rarely  trouble 
themselves  to  carry  about  prisoners  of  war,  it  is 
obvious  to  any  one  who  has  ever  travelled  in  the 
country  that  such  a  number  of  prisoners  could  hardly 
be  collected  even  by  the  Chinese  in  less  than  six 
years.  The  Hun-hu-tzes  nowhere  go  about  in  large 
bodies,  and  even  such  combined  forces  as  they  have 
split  up  and  disappear  at  the  approach  of  the  enemy. 
Yet  this  tale  is  a  worthy  specimen  of  official  Russian 
reports  as  they  appear  in  New-chwang. 

To  get  any  real  idea  of  the  state  of  the  country, 
therefore,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  travel ;  and 
there  is  this  advantage  in  travelling  through  Man- 


THE  MILITARY  SITUATION 


109 


churia,  as  compared  with  travelling  in  real  Russian 
territory,  that  the  Russians  themselves,  being  far 
from  home,  are  remarkably  outspoken,  and  criticise 
even  their  own  Government  with  great  freedom,  so 
that  by  collating  evidence  and  striking  out  the 
obviously  false  one  is  able  to  arrive  at  information 
which  differs  entirely  from  the  official  reports,  and 
may  to  a  large  extent  be  relied  on. 

As  regards  the  state  of  the  country  in  1901,  it  was 
perfectly  correct  to  describe  it  as  unsettled  and 
turbulent.  At  Liao-yang  the  missionaries  told  me 
that,  even  if  they  were  permitted  by  the  Russians  to 
travel  among  the  hills  to  the  east,  they  would  hardly 
care  to  undertake  the  risk  ;  and  when  a  missionary 
considers  it  dangerous  to  travel  in  China,  one  may 
take  it  for  granted  that  the  country  is  in  a  bad 
state. 

Nevertheless,  I  found  the  whole  railway  route  and 
the  districts  through  which  the  route  passed  as 
safe  as  English  highways.  People  travelled  without 
escorts  from  Mukden  to  Kirin,  and  in  the  eighty 
miles  from  Kuan-cheng-tze  to  Kirin,  with  no  military 
posts  along  the  road,  we  never  heard  of  robbers.  On 
the  road  from  Kirin  to  the  Sungari  Bridge,  a  distance 
of  from  ninety  to  a  hundred  miles,  we  were  told  at 
one  village  that  there  was  a  force  of  two  hundred 
brigands  in  the  marshy  ground  south  of  the  river ; 
but  whether  this  was  so  or  not  it  was  impossible  to 
say.  There  was  no  evidence  of  the  village  having 
been  attacked  or  robbed.  On  the  whole,  life  and 
property  were  as  safe  on  the  road  anywhere  between 
New-chwang  and  Kharbin  as  on  any  road  in  China, 


110 


THE  MILITARY  SITUATION 


and  far  safer  than  they  were  at  the  same  time  in  the 
province  of  Chih-li,  where  the  other  allies  had  been 
trying  to  establish  peace  and  quiet. 

The  eastern  mountainous  portion  of  the  country 
was  still  a  long  way  from  being  settled,  because  the 
brigands  of  ordinary  times  had  been  increased  to  an 
enormous  extent  by  the  disbanded  soldiers  of  the 
Boxer  year.  To  attempt  to  deal  with  this  question 
by  spasmodic  expeditions  on  a  cumbersome  scale 
was  obviously  futile,  and  one  may  conclude  that  the 
various  expeditions  undertaken  up  to  date  had 
really  had  for  their  object  rather  the  exercising  of 
the  Russian  army  than  the  extermination  of  the 
brigands.  But  this  by  no  means  proved  the  in¬ 
capacity  of  the  Russian  army  to  suppress  the  Hun- 
hu-tzes. 

It  took  seven  years  to  put  down  the  Dacoits  in 
Burma,  and  it  may  take  as  long  to  exterminate  the 
brigands  in  Manchuria.  In  any  case,  the  Russians 
do  not  much  care,  because  for  the  present  their 
main  object  is  to  protect  their  railway ;  the  other 
part  of  the  business  can  wait.  Nor  is  it  reasonable 
to  expect  that  the  country  away  from  the  military 
centres  should  be  as  quiet  as  in  ordinary  times. 
Troubles  like  the  rising  of  1900  must  have  their 
aftermath,  and  there  is  a  good  second  harvest  of 
murder  and  outrage  being  reaped  in  many  parts  of 
China  proper  as  well  as  in  Manchuria.  It  is  really 
only  the  prejudiced  eye  that  sees  insurmountable 
difficulties  ahead  of  the  Russians. 

In  this  connection  a  word  is  necessary  concerning 
a  remarkable  series  of  statements  made  by  one  of 


THE  MILITARY  SITUATION 


111 


the  most  famous  journalists  in  Europe  (now  de¬ 
ceased),  who  received  his  information  from  a  pro¬ 
found  student  of  Chinese  affairs  soon  to  occupy  the 
Chair  for  Chinese  Knowledge  at  some  Continental 
University.  Those  who  attend  the  University  will 
do  well  to  avoid  the  historical  part  of  the  professor’s 
lectures.  Among  these  statements  two  peculiarly 
interesting  assertions  were  made  :  first,  that  the 
Boxer  trouble  never  spread  to  Manchuria ;  and 
secondly,  that  there  were  no  Chinese  troops  in  the 
country,  the  object  of  both  assertions  being  appar¬ 
ently  to  prove  that  the  whole  opposition  to  the 
Russian  troops  was  a  farce.  These  assertions  are 
in  a  way  typical  of  the  things  which  have  been 
said  about  Manchuria  under  the  influence  of  Russo- 
phobia. 

The  Boxer  movement  was  as  violent  in  Southern 
Manchuria  as  anywhere  in  China,  and  the  symptoms 
were  identical  :  railways  destroyed,  foreign  houses 
burned,  and  foreigners  murdered.  The  only  reason 
why  fewer  missionaries  were  killed  is  that  the  wave 
came  later  than  in  Chih-li,  there  was  ample  warning, 
and  there  were  Russian  troops  on  the  spot.  As  for 
there  being  no  Chinese  troops  in  Manchuria,  no  asser¬ 
tion  could  well  be  more  ridiculous,  seeing  that  Man¬ 
churia,  unlike  China  proper,  is  under  a  military 
form  of  government.  It  is  the  military  element  now 
dispersed  throughout  the  country  which  has  so 
aggravated  the  ordinary  lawlessness  of  the  more 
remote  districts,  and  it  is  useless  to  expect  complete 
peace  in  the  Yalu  Valley  until  the  whole  question 
is  dealt  with  in  a  systematic  way.  Indeed  it  is 


112 


THE  MILITARY  SITUATION 


probable  that  in  the  mountainous  districts  the 
brigands  will  always  remain  until  they  are  forced  to 
disappear,  like  malaria  and  mosquitoes,  before  the 
slow  advance  of  railways  and  civilisation. 

Of  the  Hun-hu-tzes  along  the  Liao  River  I  have 
already  written  at  length.  Like  the  brigands  in 
the  East,  they  have  had  their  ranks  swollen  by  dis¬ 
banded  soldiers,  who  are  a  sore  scourge  to  the 
country.  In  New-chwang  you  are  told  that  the 
Russians  cannot  clear  the  river,  and  that  no  one  can 
clear  the  river  except  the  Chinese  themselves.  I 
am  convinced  that  if  Manchuria  were  a  British 
dependency  the  Hun-hu-tzes  would  vanish  in  a  very 
short  time.  Compared  with  brigands  of  other  races 
they  are  ridiculously  easy  to  deal  with,  because  they 
are  devoid  of  courage  and  unable  to  take  advantage 
of  all  the  facilities  for  attack  offered  to  them  by 
Nature.  It  is  not  their  business  to  fight,  because 
they  only  hurt  their  own  trade  by  doing  so,  and  in 
a  country  where  no  able-bodied  man  has  the 
slightest  difficulty  in  earning  a  decent  living  they 
would  soon  be  reduced  to  an  honest  mode  of  life  by 
a  strong  Power. 

The  Russians  can  do  it  nearly  as  easily  as  the 
British  could.  They  have  made  the  railway  secure 
by  Cossack  posts,  and  it  is  sheer  nonsense  to  pre¬ 
tend  that  they  cannot  do  as  much  for  the  river  if  it 
is  worth  their  while ;  but  it  is  not  worth  their  while 
as  long  as  New-chwang  is  a  treaty  port  and  Man¬ 
churia  is  a  Chinese  and  not  a  Russian  dependency. 
If  they  police  the  river  sufficiently  to  enable  them¬ 
selves  to  get  a  good  revenue  out  of  the  native 


ON  THE  YALU 


TEMPORARY  TRESTLE  BRIDGE  IN  MANCHURIA 


THE  MILITARY  SITUATION 


113 


customs  for  the  time  being,  that  is  all  they  can  he 
expected  to  do.  In  other  words,  Manchuria  never 
will  be  thoroughly  settled  and  peaceful  until  it  is  a 
Russian  dependency  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the 
term. 

Those  who  believe  that  the  Chinese  are  the  only 
people  who  can  deal  with  the  brigand  question  forget 
that  the  Chinese  officials  have  attempted  to  put  a 
stop  to  brigandage  for  hundreds  of  years  without 
success.  Every  year  a  thousand  heads  fell  from  the 
block  at  Mukden  and  Kirin,  and  every  year  the 
same  blackmail  has  been  levied  on  merchants’ 
goods.  The  compromise  has  been  reached,  and  no 
further  reduction  of  the  evil  is  deemed  possible  or 
even  desirable.  If  in  the  anti-Boxer  days  the 
magistrates  had  no  power  to  root  out  the  evil,  much 
less  can  they  attempt  the  task  now  that  their 
military  authority  is  curtailed,  their  “face”  gone, 
and  they  no  longer  represent  truly  the  majesty  of 
the  Son  of  Heaven.  The  Chinese,  of  course,  tell 
you  that  the  Hun-hu-tzes  always  have  existed  and 
always  must,  but  when  a  foreigner  begins  to  talk  in 
this  way  you  know  that  he  has  been  twenty  years 
in  China,  and  begins  to  need  a  change  of  air. 

In  Manchuria  itself  the  gentle  Hun-hu-tze  is  the 
only  obstacle  to  the  complete  military  domination  of 
the  country,  and  the  smallest  experience  proves  that 
this  is  a  tedious  but  otherwise  insignificant  difficulty. 
For  the  rest  the  Chinese  army  has  disappeared,  and 
the  people  and  magistrates  acquiesce  quietly,  if  not 
gladly,  in  Russian  rule.  People  would  like  to  show 
that  the  Russians  cannot  govern  Manchuria  ;  they 

H 


114 


THE  MILITARY  SITUATION 


pretend  to  believe  that  the  Russians  will  find  the 
task  too  arduous,  and  they  talk  about  the  passive 
opposition  of  the  Chinese,  and  prophesy  all  sorts  of 
trouble  in  the  .future.  All  this  is  moonshine.  I  dare¬ 
say  the  Chinese  are  nursing  wrath  in  their  hearts, 
but  outwardly  they  are  as  cheerful  as  they  can  be 
under  the  Russian  yoke,  which  for  the  most  part  is 
extremely  light.  They  are  getting  better  wages  than 
ever  before,  and  the  merchants  are  making  more 
money.  The  Russian  soldiers  are  kept  well  in  hand, 
and  outrages  rarely  occur.  Above  all,  the  Chinese 
fraternise  with  the  Russians,  because  the  Russians 
fraternise  with  them. 

I  have  heard  British  people  speak  with  disgust  of 
the  way  in  which  Chinese  and  Russians  go  about  arm 
in  arm,  and  embrace  one  another  ;  and  at  the  same 
time  they  will  tell  you  that  the  Chinese  hate  the 
Russians  more  than  any  other  foreign  nation.  The 
two  things  do  not  seem  to  agree.  Our  way  is  to 
stand  aloof  from  the  Chinese  altogether,  to  treat 
them  with  perfect  justice  but  absolutely  no  sym¬ 
pathy,  which  may  or  may  not  be  the  wisest  way  in 
the  long  run  ;  but  one  can  have  no  doubt  as  to  which 
way  the  Chinese  themselves  prefer.  No  one  will 
persuade  me  that  a  Chinaman  prefers  justice  to 
sympathy,  or  likes  to  be  pushed  off  the  pavement 
into  the  middle  of  the  road. 

It  is,  however,  not  even  necessary  to  compare 
methods.  Either  will  do.  The  British  or  the 
Russians,  whatever  be  their  ways,  can  certainly 
govern  a  nation  which  for  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years  has  been  dominated  by  the  worthless  Manchus. 


THE  MILITARY  SITUATION 


115 


It  is  a  pity  that  Great  Britain  cannot  have  Man¬ 
churia  ;  but  that  being  impossible,  it  is  useless  to  try 
to  keep  Russia  out  of  the  manger  by  telling  her  that 
she  will  find  the  manger  very  uncomfortable. 

The  real  military  question  involved  in  Manchuria 
is  whether  the  Russians  can  take  the  country  and 
hold  it  against  the  world.  Their  position,  when  I 
visited  the  country,  was  somewhat  as  follows  :  In  the 
East — that  is  to  say,  east  of  Stretensk — they  had, 
at  the  lowest  computation,  one  hundred  and  eighty 
thousand  men.  These  were  quartered  in  Port 
Arthur,  Liao-yang,  Mukden,  Tieh-ling,  Kai-yuan, 
Kuan-chen-tze,  Kirin,  Kharbin,  Vladivostok,  Kha- 
barofsk,  all  along  the  railways  of  Manchuria  and  on 
the  banks  of  the  Amur.  If,  in  accordance  with  her 
promises,  Russia  evacuates  Manchuria  she  will  not 
of  course  withdraw  men  from  Port  Arthur  or  Vladi¬ 
vostok  or  Khabarofsk,  she  will  not  even  be  compelled 
to  leave  Kharbin,  which  is  entirely  a  Russian  settle¬ 
ment,  though  in  the  heart  of  Manchuria.  At  Mukden 
and  Kirin  she  will  undoubtedly  keep  garrisons  just 
as  others  Powers  keep  garrisons  in  Peking;  and  once 
the  principle  is  admitted,  the  size  of  the  garrison 
can  hardly  be  called  in  question. 

An  evacuation,  therefore,  would  not  mean  a  with¬ 
drawal  of  any  of  the  one  hundred  and  eighty  thou¬ 
sand  troops  from  the  East,  but  merely  the  concen¬ 
trating  of  these  troops  in  garrison  towns.  Of  this  I 
was  convinced  not  only  by  conversing  with  Russians, 
but  also  by  observing  the  numbers  of  men  still 
pouring  into  the  country.  Between  Kharbin  and 
Kirin  alone  I  met  four  thousand  recruits  for  the 


116 


THE  MILITARY  SITUATION 


Regular  Army,  and  not  a  man  was  going  out.  Of 
course,  it  may  be  argued  that  until  evacuation  does 
take  place  recruits  must  come  in  as  usual ;  but  one 
hardly  expects  them  to  come  in  such  numbers,  and 
it  is  remarkable  that  there  should  be  such  a  steady 
flow  and  no  ebb. 

Then  above  and  beyond  the  Regular  Army  there 
was  the  railway  guard,  which  was  to  be  increased  to 
twenty-nine  thousand  men  (the  twenty-nine  reminds 
one  of  the  llfd.  in  the  salesmans  window).  This 
force,  no  longer  called  railway  guard,  but  “  Achranie  # 
Straja,”  or  “  protecting  guard,”  is  a  volunteer  force 
of  picked  Cossacks,  all  of  whom  are  supposed  to  be 
over  twenty-five  years  of  age,  and  are  highly  paid 
according  to  Russian  ideas  of  pay.  It  is  plain  that 
such  a  force  is  far  too  large  for  the  mere  purpose  of 
guarding  the  railway  ;  eight  thousand  men  could  do 
that  very  well  all  over  Manchuria.  This  guard  is 
splendidly  armed  and  mounted  on  the  best  Mon¬ 
golian  ponies,  of  which  the  Russians  have  now  an 
inexhaustible  store,  and  it  is  really  a  nucleus  for 
the  defence  of  Manchuria  against  foreign  invasion. 

These  Cossacks  possess  nearly  all  the  good  quali¬ 
ties  of  the  Boers,  with  some  additional  virtues. 
They  are  better  mounted,  and  their  ponies  are  not 
subject  to  the  fatal  horse-sickness  of  South  Africa. 
Being  armed  with  both  swords  and  bayonets,  they 
are  more  fitted  for  offensive  operations  than  the 
Boers,  while  their  natural  quickness  and  intelligence 
make  them  masters  of  defensive  tactics.  The 
Cossack  is  generally  regarded  as  a  wholly  unedu¬ 
cated  person,  which  is  in  reality  far  from  being  the 


THE  MILITARY  SITUATION 


117 


case.  If  he  is  as  a  rule  no  scholar,  he  is  learned  in 
all  the  lore  of  the  forest  and  river  and  prairie, 
while  his  very  lack  of  exact  discipline  is  likely  to 
improve  rather  than  to  detract  from  his  fighting 
strength. 

With  the  experience  of  the  South  African  War 
behind  him  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  any  one  can 
underrate  the  enormous  value  of  this  so-called 
railway  guard  in  the  event  of  a  war  against  Japan. 
That  the  Japanese  could  ever  turn  the  Russians  out 
of  Manchuria  one  would  never  suggest  if  it  were  not 
for  the  fact  that  many  enlightened  military  autho¬ 
rities  still  talk  of  the  “  inevitable  war  ”  between 
Japan  and  Russia,  in  which  Japan  is  going  to  make 
mincemeat  of  the  Great  Bear.  Now,  how  is  she 
going  to  do  it  ?  She  can  blockade  Port  Arthur  and 
Vladivostok,  but  as  Russia  has  little  trade  to  ruin 
that  will  not  hurt  any  one  very  much.  She  can  land 
Army  Corps  by  the  dozen  in  Manchuria  and  seize  the 
Valley  of  the  Liao,  establishing,  perhaps,  her  head¬ 
quarters  at  Mukden.  Russia  would  adopt  her  old 
tactics  and  retire. 

Then  the  real  war  would  begin.  The  Russian 
railway  may  be  a  poor  affair,  but  year  by  year  it  would 
bring  men  by  driblets  to  the  East,  and  all  the  time 
Japan,  with  no  natural  line  of  defence,  but  with  long 
lines  of  communication  to  keep  up,  would  be  subject 
to  the  attacks  of  thirty  thousand  of  the  finest  Mounted 
Infantry  in  the  world.  One  cannot  seriously  believe 
that  Japan  would  ever  invade  Manchuria,  unless, 
indeed,  she  be  caught  by  the  madness  with  which  the 
gods  first  visit  those  whom  they  wish  to  destroy  ;  but 


118 


THE  MILITARY  SITUATION 


if  ever  her  Army  did  occupy  Mukden  she  would  only 
find  another  Moscow  in  the  ancient  capital  of  the 
Manchus  ;  and  when  all  is  said  and  done  what  would 
be  the  use  ?  She  could  never  hope  to  hold  the  Liao 
valley  for  ever  against ptussia  ;  Great  Britain  might 
just  as  well  try  to  hold  Normandy  again  against 
France.  Nor  can  she  restore  Jit  to  China,  for  then 
China  gives  it  back  to  Russia,  and  so  the  game  begins 
all  over  again.  At  the  very  best  J apan  could  con¬ 
fine  her  attentions  to  the  Liao-tung  Peninsula,  and 
in  the  course  of  a  year  or  so  she  might  possibly 
reduce  Port  Arthur  by  starvation.  But  is  it  worth 
while  to  plunge  the  East,  and  perhaps  the  whole 
world,  into  war  for  the  sake  of  getting  back  what  she 
voluntarily  resigned  five  years  ago  ? 

The  conclusion  is  that  as  far  as  Manchuria  is  con¬ 
cerned  Russia  is  even  now  more  or  less  invulnerable. 
Great  Britain,  Japan,  and  the  United  States  com¬ 
bined  might  force  her  to  give  up  New-chwang,  and 
they  might  even  damage  her  railway  and  her  new 
town  at  Dalny  ;  but  that  after  all  is  not  war  and 
helps  nobody.  If  Russia  is  compelled  to  evacuate 
New-chwang  she  will  make  New-chwang  suffer,  and 
that  is  the  end  of  it.  Naturally  she  does  not  want 
to  fight,  even  though  she  must  in  the  long  run  win. 
Though  her  vital  parts  are  invulnerable,  she  can  yet 
suffer  loss  of  treasure  and  men  and  prestige.  We 
could  in  all  probability  inflict  another  Crimea  on  her 
— a  barren  victory,  yet  for  the  vanquished  an 
unpleasant  defeat. 

One  cannot  pretend  to  have  a  great  opinion  of 
the  Russian  Regular  Army.  The  officers  seem  to  be 


THE  MILITARY  SITUATION 


119 


wanting  in  many  of  the  qualities  which  go  to  ensure 
success,  and  the  men  are  slaves  to  discipline.  Old 
mass  formations  and  volley-firing  with  fixed  bayonets 
are  the  characteristic  features  of  Russian  tactics  to¬ 
day,  as  they  were  in  the  days  of  the  Crimea.  Not 
a  single  lesson  has  been  learned  from  the  South 
African  War,  because  the  Russian  officer  looks  with 
absolute  disdain  on  both  parties  in  that  struggle, 
and  this,  though  it  is  not  flattering  to  our  pride,  is 
a  great  point  in  our  favour  ;  for  it  shows  that  in  any 
modern  war  the  Russians  would  make  greater 
blunders  than  we  ever  committed  on  the  veldt. 
But  yet  the  fact  remains  that  nothing  more  disas¬ 
trous  could  be  contemplated  than  an  invasion  of 
Manchuria  by  Japan  or  by  Japan  and  Great  Britain 
combined. 

What  then,  is  Japan  to  do  ?  Is  she  to  sit  down 
and  watch  the  Russian  flood  descending  on  her 
fields  without  attempting  to  set  up  a  barrier  ?  The 
answer  is  very  simple.  Japan  must  take  Korea,  and 
do  it  very  quickly  too.  There  is  nothing  difficult 
about  it.  Russia  in  Japan’s  place  would  have  had 
Korea  long  ago.  While  Mukden  could  never  be 
defended  against  the  advancing  hordes  from  the 
north,  Korea  can  very  easily  be  made  secure.  There 
is  a  natural  barrier  between  Korea  and  Manchuria, 
and  in  these  days  the  two  entrances  at  each  end  of 
the  barrier  could  be  made  impregnable.  But,  above 
all,  by  taking  Korea  J apan  would  remove  Masampho 
from  the  power  of  Russia,  and  so  put  a  wedge 
between  Vladivostok  and  Port  Arthur  which  would 
seriously  hamper  all  her  naval  movements. 


120 


THE  MILITARY  SITUATION 


Russia,  humanly  speaking,  must  have  had  Masam- 
pho  in  the  course  of  the  next  few  years  but  for  the 
Anglo- Japanese  Treaty,  and  when  once  Masampho 
is  a  Russian  harbour,  Korea  is  as  good  as  gone. 
In  the  meantime  the  Anglo- Japanese  Treaty  has 
served  as  a  useful  check  upon  Russia’s  advance,  and 
for  awhile  Korea  is  safe ;  but  whether  she  can  for 
ever  withstand  the  slow  but  subtle  workings  of 
Russian  diplomacy  is  another  question,  and  one 
which  still  has  to  be  answered.  The  object  of  the 
present  chapter  is  to  show  that  from  a  strategic 
point  of  view  the  occupation  of  Manchuria  does  not 
necessarily  entail  the  loss  to  Japan  of  Korea.  Man-* 
churia  has  no  boundaries  towards  the  North  and 
W est,  and  could  never  be  held  by  any  Power  for 
long  against  Russia  without  enormous  and  ruinous 
expense.  Korea,  On  the  other  hand,  has  a  good 
land  frontier,  while  she  is  protected  on  three  sides 
by  the  sea.  The  Power,  therefore,  that  holds  the 
naval  supremacy  in  the  Yellow  Sea  must  control  the 
destinies  of  Korea  ;  only  a  great  military  Power  can 
hold  Manchuria.  Russia  is  already  the  greatest 
military  Power  in  the  Far  East — we  must  take  care 
that  she  does  not  attain  to  naval  predominance  as 
well. 


CHAPTER,  IX 


THE  ECONOMIC  SITUATION  IN  MANCHURIA 

It  would  be  worth  while  to  travel  in  Manchuria  if  it 
were  only  for  the  sake  of  making  the  discovery  that 
Russia  is  no  more  infallible  in  her  Eastern  policy 
than  our  own  much-abused  Government.  Indeed, 
in  Manchuria  you  will  hear  the  officials  in  St. 
Petersburg  more  roundly  abused  than  ever  Downing 
Street  has  been  in  Shanghai,  and  that  is  saying  a 
great  deal. 

We  outsiders  have  an  idea  that  the  advance  of 
Russia  in  the  East  is  the  result  of  a  wise  policy  long 
thought  out  and  based  on  thorough  knowledge  of  facts ; 
and  yet  when  we  read  the  history  of  Siberia  we  find 
that  in  past  times  the  advance  has  been  fortuitous 
and  almost  haphazard — the  result  of  individual  effort 
on  the  frontier,  and  not  at  all  the  work  of  wise 
statesmen  at  home.  These  pioneers  have  won  that 
reward  which  Cecil  Rhodes  once  declared  to  be 
the  highest  guerdon  of  merit — they  have  left  their 
names  on  the  map  of  the  world  at  such  places  as 
Petropavlosk  and  Khabarofsk,  but  our  knowledge  of 
Eastern  p*'  graphy  is  so  small  that  to  most  of  us 
these  monuments  are  invisible,  and  it  is  fortunate  if 
we  remember  the  name  of  Muravieff  Amursky. 

To-day  the  process  has  not  changed  in  the  slightest 


THE  ECONOMIC  SITUATION 


122 

degree.  The  rich  prize  of  Manchuria  has  fallen  to 
Russia  almost  against  the  will  of  her  home  poli¬ 
ticians.  One  is  accustomed  to  smile  incredulously  at 
the  promises  of  Russia  to  evacuate  Manchuria,  yet 
on  closer  examination  it  will  be  found  that  these 
promises,  though  they  will  never  be  carried  out,  have 
been  made  in  good  faith.  There  have  been  times 
when  the  Russian  Government  would  very  willingly 
have  abandoned  the  new  possession  if  it  had  dared. 
But  even  in  a  country  ruled  by  an  absolute  monarch 
the  agents  of  progress  will  have  their  way.  In 
Russia  there  are  evidently  three  parties  :  the  old- 
fashioned  Bureaucratic  Party,  which  holds  the  reins 
of  power,  and  is  always  timid  and  short-sighted ; 
the  Forward  Party,  under  the  leadership  of  M. 
Witte  ;  and  the  “  Jingo  ”  Party,  whose  leaders  are 
nameless  as  far  as  the  outside  world  is  concerned. 
It  was  the  “  Jingo  ”  Party  which  brought  about  the 
Cassini  Convention,  the  occupation  of  Port  Arthur, 
and  the  building  of  the  Manchurian  Railway.  The 
moderate  men  like  M.  Witte  come  in  after  the 
accomplished  fact  to  fill  in  the  design  and  to  find  the 
money.  The  old  Conservative  Party  merely  acts  as 
a  drag  on  the  wheels  of  Imperialism,  being  at  heart 
in  sympathy  with  the  movement,  but  physically  in¬ 
capable  of  spontaneous  action. 

Fortunately  for  Russia  she  has  no  active  Little 
Russia  Party.  But  the  leaders  of  the  “ Jingo” 
Party,  who  are  they  who  bend  the  power  of  the 
Emperor  to  their  will  ?  Certainly  not  the  Cassinis 
or  the  Pavloffs,  not  even,  perhaps,  the  late  Muravieff 
the  Second,  who  occupied  a  position  more  resembling 


THE  ECONOMIC  SITUATION 


123 


that  of  M.  Witte  to-day  as  the  consolidator  of  new 
acquisitions. 

If  one  had  to  name  one  man  out  of  many  who 
work  for  Russia’s  advance  in  the  East  anonymously, 
as  it  were,  since  newspaper  fame  may  not  be  won 
in  Russia,  one  would  unhesitatingly  single  out  M. 
Pokotilov,  the  chief  of  the  Russo- Chinese  Bank  in 
Peking.  It  was  he,  and  not  Count  Cassini  or  M. 
Pavloff,  who  was  responsible  for  the  whole  Port 
Arthur  espisode,  and  it  is  he  who  held  Li-hung- 
chang  and,  through  him,  the  Chinese  Court  in  the 
hollow  of  his  hand.  The  negotiations  which  led  to 
the  withdrawal  of  the  Russians  from  Peking  and 
practically  sealed  the  fate  of  Manchuria  were  carried 
on  in  Shanghai  between  Li-hung-chang  and  Prince 
Ouchtomsky  ;  but  undoubtedly  the  man  behind  the 
throne  was  M.  Pokotilov,  who  was  in  Shanghai  at 
the  same  time ;  and  it  is  this  same  quiet  banker 
whose  name  has  hardly  been  mentioned  in  the  Euro¬ 
pean  press,  who  dictates  the  policy  of  Russia  in  the 
East  to-day. 

That,  however,  the  Government  has  any  strong 
or  definite  policy  one  very  soon  begins  to  doubt  on 
getting  within  the  hounds  of  Russian  jurisdiction. 
I  found  no  single  attempt  being  made  to  supply  civil 
administration  to  Manchuria  because  the  timid  Gov¬ 
ernment  was  afraid  to  take  so  bold  a  step.  The 
administration  was  entirely,  except  at  New-chwang, 
in  the  hands  of  the  Chinese  ;  but  it  had  been  reduced 
to  a  farce.  The  Governors-General  of  the  three 
provinces  have  been  robbed  of  their  military  power, 
and  may  now  employ  only  about  two  thousand  men 


124 


THE  ECONOMIC  SITUATION 


each,  who  must  all  carry  Russian  certificates.  These 
bodyguards  are  ridiculously  insufficient  for  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  properly  policing  the  enormous  regions  under 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  Chinese  Governors  ;  and  the 
Governors  are  supreme  only  in  name.  They  hardly 
dare  stir  outside  their  own  yamens  without  the  per¬ 
mission  of  the  Russian  authorities. 

The  Governor  of  Kirin,  for  example,  had  great 
difficulty  in  getting  permits  for  his  family  to  come 
to  him  from  New-chwang  to  his  own  capital.  Nor 
do  the  Russians  care  to  select  good  men  for  office. 
The  Jiang-jiin,  or  Governor- General,  of  Mukden, 
was  known  to  have  been  deeply  implicated  in  the 
Boxer  trouble,  and  yet  he  was  allowed  to  continue 
in  office,  presumably  because  he  was  readily  amen¬ 
able  to  Russian  influence.  The  magistrate  of 
Hai-chen,  who  was  said  by  the  Chinese  to  be  one 
of  the  few  really  honest  officials  in  Manchuria,  a 
man  who  never  accepted  a  bribe,  and  whose 
courage  in  putting  down  lawlessness  was  almost 
unique,  was  dismissed  from  his  post  on  some 
trumped-up  charge  brought  by  a  Chinese  inter¬ 
preter,  the  real  reason  being  that  he  had  called  on 
all  the  foreign  Consuls  in  New-chwang,  though 
warned  not  to  do  so.  It  is  fair  to  add  that  he  was, 
after  some  difficulty,  reinstated  at  the  instance  of 
Colonel  Genke. 

While  the  Russians  have  made  Chinese  rule  a 
farce  they  have  done  little  or  nothing,  as  I  have 
already  stated,  to  supply  the  want  of  civil  authority. 
At  Kirin  I  found  a  Russian  Consul  who  was  at 
loggerheads  with  the  military  authorities,  but  for 


THE  ECONOMIC  SITUATION 


125 


the  most  part  the  country  is  dominated  by  the 
military  element.  Admiral  Alexeieff  was  nominally 
in  control  of  the  province  of  Mukden,  but  he  took  no 
part  in  the  civil  administration.  One  can  hardly 
imagine  a  worse  form  of  government  than  that 
which  is  carried  on  by  corrupt  Chinese  officials,  who 
are  in  turn  controlled  by  Russian  generals.  For, 
indeed,  the  Russian  general,  take  him  on  the  average, 
is  about  as  ignorant  of  anything  outside  fighting  and 
drinking  vodka  as  it  is  possible  to  be.  The  only 
point  in  his  favour  is  that  in  domestic  matters  he 
leaves  the  Chinese  officials  to  take  care  of  themselves. 
No  attempt  has  been  made  to  touch  the  existing 
system  of  taxation  except  at  New-chwang,  where 
the  revenue  is  sufficient  to  make  it  worth  the  trouble 
of  collecting. 

At  Tieh-ling  I  was  surprised  to  find  that  the 
magistrate  was  allowed  to  levy  a  tax  on  all  goods 
travelling  by  rail.  There  would  be  no  inherent 
objection  to  this  tax  if  it  were  not  for  the  method  of 
collection,  which  consists  in  farming  it  out  to  a 
merchant,  who  collects  at  least  twice  as  much  as  he 
pays  into  the  official  treasury.  If  the  Russians 
allow  a  tax  of  this  sort  to  be  levied  on  goods  to  the 
detriment  of  their  own  railway  (since  such  taxes 
must  in  a  slight  degree  discourage  transportation  by 
rail),  it  may  be  taken  for  granted  that  they  have 
made  no  attempt  to  organise  the  financial  system  of 
the  country  in  other  directions. 

Politically,  I  found  Manchuria  a  chaos  of 
Chinese  rascality,  military  red  tape,  and  general 
Russian  incapacity ;  and  this  not  because  Russia 


1 26 


THE  ECONOMIC  SITUATION 


cannot  govern  Manchuria,  but  simply  and  solely 
because  the  home  Government  had  not  the  courage 
of  its  convictions,  and  was  unwilling  to  inaugurate 
any  change  which  might  point  to  a  permanent 
occupation.  Indeed,  the  Government  will  not  as  yet 
encourage  immigration  into  Manchuria,  and,  though 
the  Cossacks  of  the  Frontier  Guard  (Achranie 
Straja)  are  permitted  to  bring  their  wives  and  to 
settle  in  the  country,  not  one  in  a  hundred  has  yet 
done  so,  because  they  do  not  trust  their  own  Govern¬ 
ment,  and  are  afraid  to  risk  everything  on  the  chance 
of  permanent  occupation. 

Such  is  the  political  situation  in  Manchuria,  and 
such  is  the  policy  of  the  Russian  Government,  which 
from  the  outside  we  are  accustomed  to  praise  for  its 
courage  and  magnificent  diplomacy.  In  reality  the 
Russians,  instead  of  being  in  a  fixed  camp  as  it 
were,  and  well  fortified  against  attack,  are  only 
bivouacking  in  Manchuria  in  a  state  of  nervous 
apprehension  lest  some  unknown  foe  should  turn 
their  flank.  One  may  imagine  then  how  the 
progressives  cry  out  in  bitterness  against  the  supine 
bureaucracy  of  St.  Petersburg. 

Economically  speaking,  the  situation  is  almost  as 
unsatisfactory.  There  is  a  party,  the  same  forward 
party  that  built  the  Manchurian  Railway,  which 
would  like  to  make  a  great  country  of  Manchuria. 
There  are  not  wanting  men  in  Russia  who  are 
inspired  by  the  highest  motives  and  the  broadest 
ideas,  and  whose  education  has  been  gathered  in 
English  and  American  schools  of  political  economy. 
These  men  have  built  Dalny,  and  it  is  obvious  that 


THE  ECONOMIC  SITUATION 


m 


such  a  port  as  Dalny  was  not  intended  for  a  typically 
Russian  form  of  government.  The  new  harbour  in 
itself  signifies  foreign  trade,  and  above  all  foreign 
imports.  These  progressive  men  look  beyond  the 
bounds  of  a  purely  Russian  finance,  and  if  not 
committed  to  Free  Trade  are  at  least  believers  in  the 
natural  trend  of  commerce,  and  recognise  the  fact 
that  Manchuria  and  the  East  generally  must  be 
supplied  by  Japan  and  the  United  States  rather  than 
by  European  Russia.  They  would  develop  Man¬ 
churia  if  they  had  their  way,  just  as  Great  Britain 
or  the  United  States  would  develop  it. 

It  might  be  argued  that  since  this  progressive 
and  enlightened  party  has  been  so  far  successful  in 
making  the  Government  follow  its  lead  it  will  con¬ 
tinue  to  be  so  to  the  extent  even  of  preserving  the 
“  open  door  ”  in  Manchuria.  Unfortunately  one 
thing  does  not  follow  the  other.  In  persuading  the 
Government  to  occupy  Port  Arthur  and  to  build 
the  railway,  they  were  able  to  appeal  to  the 
Russian’s  love  of  political  power ;  there  was,  in  fact, 
no  great  enlightenment  in  the  mere  pursuit  of  political 
expansion.  But  to  expect  the  Russian  Government 
to  pursue  a  broad-minded  policy  in  commerce  is 
quite  another  matter. 

The  Americans,  who  take  an  interest  in  Man¬ 
churia,  are  afraid  that  a  country  with  such  magnifi¬ 
cent  resources  and  such  cheap  labour  will  eventually 
be  in  a  position  to  undersell  the  world,  and  to  domi¬ 
nate  entirely  the  politics  of  Asia.  These  fears  are 
partly  groundless,  because  the  Russians  will  go  very 
slow  in  their  development  of  the  country.  Though, 


128 


THE  ECONOMIC  SITUATION 


they  had  been  four  years  on  the  railway  already, 
they  were  still  in  1901  burning  Japanese  coal,  and  in 
the  northern  sections  they  burn  wood,  which  is  an 
expensive  and  extravagant  method  of  locomotion, 
and  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  they  have  fine  coal 
mines  at  Yen-tai,  near  Mukden,  which  they  have 
been  slowly  developing.  It  will  be  years  before 
the  mineral  resources  of  Manchuria  are  more  than 
scraped,  and  still  longer  before  the  manufactures 
of  the  East  begin  to  compete  with  those  of  the 
West. 

In  the  first  place,  the  cheap  labour  scare  is  a  great 
bugbear.  Properly  speaking,  cheap  labour  exists 
nowhere  in  the  world  for  any  length  of  time  ;  by- 
and-by,  like  water,  labour  finds  its  own  level,  and 
prices  tend  to  do  the  same.  Russian  engineers  (and 
British  too)  will  tell  you  that  a  Chinese  coolie  at  30 
kopecks  (8d.)  a  day  does  just  about  a  third  of  the 
work  that  you  can  get  out  of  a  Russian  navvy  at  90 
kopecks,  and  an  English  overseer  of  the  Kai-ping 
Mines  has  told  me  that  he  could  manage  that  great 
undertaking  more  cheaply  and  efficiently  if  the 
entire  Chinese  element,  contractor,  labourer,  and  all 
were  replaced  by  British  workmen. 

There  is  only  one  thing  which  really  makes  a 
permanent  difference  in  prices,  and  that  is  the  col¬ 
location  of  various  mineral  resources  in  one  district, 
as  is  the  case  in  certain  States  of  America,  and  this 
is  said  to  exist  in  Manchuria  also ;  but  again  it  must 
be  asserted  that  the  Russians  will  not  Americanise 
Manchuria  ;  there  will  be  no  great  boom,  because 
the  Great  Bear  moves  slowly  and  takes  his  time,  and 


THE  ECONOMIC  SITUATION 


129 


refuses  absolutely  to  be  hustled  or  exploited.  There 
is,  in  fact,  a  far  greater  danger  that,  instead  of  using 
Manchuria  as  a  weapon  for  conquering  the  commer¬ 
cial  world,  Russia  will  check  the  natural  progress  of 
the  country  and  prevent  the  exploitation  of  its 
resources.  She  will  do  nothing,  at  least,  at  present, 
to  arouse  the  apprehensions  of  countries  like  the 
United  States  and  Germany. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  one  thing  which 
must  be  clearly  understood  by  both  Englishmen  and 
Americans.  Whatever  Russia’s  promises  may  be 
now,  Manchuria  will  sooner  or  later,  perhaps  in  five 
years,  perhaps  in  ten,  be  incorporated  as  part  of 
the  Russian  Empire,  and  then  her  ports  will  be 
subject  to  the  ordinary  commercial  tariff  of  Russia ; 
and  not  only  is  this  the  case,  but  Russia  will  un¬ 
doubtedly  attempt  to  foist  her  manufactures  on  Man¬ 
churia  in  preference  to  those  of  Great  Britain,  or 
America,  or  Japan,  and  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
the  clear-headed  among  her  economists  recognise  the 
folly  of  trying  to  keep  out  Japanese  and  American 
wares.  I  was  assured  of  this  by  Russians  who  were 
in  a  position  to  know,  and  who  certainly  would  not 
overstate  the  case  in  this  direction. 

Dalny  and  New-chwang  may  be  free  ports  for 
several  years,  but  sooner  or  later  they  will  be 
closed,  just  as  Vladivostok  was  the  other  day. 
Whether  this  will  seriously  hamper  foreign  trade 
is  another  question.  In  ten  years’  time  the  fiscal 
policy  of  Russia  may  change,  and  her  protective 
tariff  may  be  lowered.  In  any  case  it  may  be 
impossible  to  kill  foreign  trade  by  tariff. 


i 


130 


THE  ECONOMIC  SITUATION 


Or,  again,  the  Russians  may  find  it  impossible  to 
close  the  Manchurian  ports  as  she  closes  her*  ports 
in  Europe.  The  Vladivostok  experiment  was  so  un¬ 
successful  that  the  tariff  had  to  be  very  quickly 
relaxed  in  order  to  prevent  the  complete  commercial 
extinction  of  the  place.  In  the  same  way  the 
Russian  Government  may  find  it  impossible  to  apply 
the  regular  European  tariff  to  Dalny  and  New-chwang, 
though  it  goes  without  saying  that  Russian  goods 
will  always  have  the  preference.  In  any  case,  the 
general  trade  of  Manchuria  cannot  fail  to  profit  by 
Russian  rule — not  so  much,  perhaps,  as  it  would  under 
British  domination,  but  since  the  British  will  never 
govern  Manchuria,  that  question  is  not  worth  dis¬ 
cussing.  The  only  question  is,  whether  Manchuria 
will  be  better  off  under  Russian  management  than 
under  Chinese  ;  and  to  that  question  there  can  be 
but  one  answer.  Russian  government  at  its  worst 
is  better  than  the  sort  of  control  which  the  Manchu 
dynasty  exercised  for  centuries  in  its  native  land. 
The  strongest  proof  of  this  is  that,  in  spite  of  all  the 
troubles  of  the  last  few  years,  the  trade  of  New- 
chwang  has  increased  by  leaps  and  bounds  ever  since 
Russia  first  established  herself  in  Manchuria. 

The  point  which  must  be  made,  however,  is  this  : 
Russia  will  keep  Manchuria  and  will  eventually  put 
a  tariff  on  imports  ;  and  there  is  no  possible  advan¬ 
tage  to  be  gained  by  merely  putting  small  obstacles 
in  her  way.  Short  of  turning  her  out  of  the  country 
and  seizing  the  railway  and  Port  Arthur,  we  cannot 
possibly  prevent  the  inevitable.  If  we  keep  her  out 
of  New-chwang,  as  we  very  well  may  do,  she  simply 


THE  ECONOMIC  SITUATION 


131 


retaliates  by  spoiling  the  trade  of  the  port.  Her 
control  of  the  railway  and  the  river  puts  it  easily  in 
her  power  to  do  what  she  likes  in  this  direction  ;  and, 
moreover,  is  it  not  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  a 
treaty-port  can  continue  to  exist  in  what  is  virtually 
part  of  Russia  ? 

What,  then,  is  the  remedy  ?  It  has  been  sug¬ 
gested  that  we  should  allow  Russia  to  keep  Manchuria 
since  we  must,  but  should  force  her  to  give  free 
access  to  our  trade.  Can  it,  however,  really  be 
imagined  that  where  we  are  powerless  to  prevent 
the  occupation  we  can  enforce  fiscal  regulations  ? 
Either  Manchuria  becomes  Russian  or  it  does  not ;  if 
it  does,  the  Russians  will  settle  the  fiscal  policy  of 
the  country.  It  is  easy  enough  to  force  tariffs  on 
China,  but  you  cannot  do  that  sort  of  thing  with  a 
country  like  Russia.  It  would  be  well,  therefore, 
that  our  statesmen  and  American  statesmen  and 
Japanese  should  give  up  their  diplomatic  victories 
and  cease  to  put  pebbles  in  the  way  of  the  advancing 
Russian  locomotive.  If  we  like  to  turn  the  Russians 
out  of  New-chwang,  well  and  good.  It  will  make  no 
difference  to  the  final  result,  and  will  perhaps  merely 
hurt  the  trade  of  the  port  for  a  time.  But,  at  all 
events,  let  us  do  it  with  a  purpose.  We  cannot  turn 
Russia  out  of  Manchuria,  but  we  can  perhaps  hold 
New-chwang  as  a  hostage  until  we  have  settled  the 
main  question. 

Our  true  course  of  action,  our  ideal  course  is  to  pin 
Russia  down  to  Manchuria.  She  has  had  her  slice  of 
China,  and  has  swallowed  it  sooner  than  the  rest  of 
us,  but  she  is  an  adept  at  the  difficult  game  of  both 


132 


THE  ECONOMIC  SITUATION 


having  her  cake  and  eating  it.  Properly  speaking, 
she  should  have  absolutely  no  voice  in  the  control  of 
the  rest  of  China  ;  she  should  not  be  allowed  to  have 
a  single  soldier  south  of  the  Great  Wall ;  it  is  even 
doubtful  that  her  Minister  should  have  a  vote  in  the 
council  in  Peking. 

But  even  this  is  not  sufficient.  Now  that  France 
is  the  avowed  ally  of  Russia,  her  troops  also  should 
be  kept  to  her  own  sphere.  It  is  useless  to  keep 
Russia  out  of  Chih-li  as  long  as  the  French  are 
allowed  to  protect  the  Lu-han  railway  with  their 
troops  whenever  trouble  arises.  There  ought  to  be 
no  Russian  or  French  force  allowed  between  Shan- 
hai-kwan  and  Canton.  Of  course  this  involves  a 
strong  policy,  but  it  is  not  too  strong  for  a  com¬ 
bination  made  up  of  Japan,  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States  ;  nor  is  such  a  combination  possible 
when  once  the  statesmen  of  these  countries  have 
grasped  the  fact  that  Russia  means  to  rule  China, 
and  will  rule  China  unless  she  is  resolutely  opposed 
by  those  who  are  interested  in  keeping  China  open 
to  the  world. 

It  is  important  also  to  have  clear  ideas  on  this 
Manchurian  question,  because  it  is  bound  to  come 
to  the  front  again  from  time  to  time.  Four  years 
ago  the  Russians  were  forced  to  look  on  Dalny  as 
the  only  real  terminus  to  their  railway,  because  the 
acquisition  of  New-chwang  seemed  to  be  beyond  the 
sphere  of  practical  politics.  Then  came  the  Boxer 
trouble,  and  by  our  own  weakness  New-chwang  was 
virtually  presented  to  Russia.  She  then  changed 
her  mind  about  Dalny  to  this  extent,  that  she 


THE  ECONOMIC  SITUATION 


133 


recognised  the  claims  of  New-chwang  to  be  at  least  a 
secondary  terminus  of  the  railway  and  a  complement 
of  Dalny.  As  usual,  luck  had  favoured  her,  and 
New-chwang  reverted  to  her  like  an  unexpected 
legacy.  Already  at  a  public  dinner  a  Russian  officer 
has  declared  that  where  the  flag  has  once  been  raised 
it  cannot  go  down  again.  Nevertheless,  Russia  does 
not  want  to  fight,  and  she  would  surrender  the  port 
to-morrow  rather  than  be  attacked  by  three  nations. 
Only  let  it  be  understood,  and  repeated  again  and 
again,  that  we  gain  nothing  in  the  long  run  by  the 
restoration  of  the  treaty-port ;  it  must  eventually 
come  under  the  sway  of  the  rulers  of  the  country 
behind  it.  It  can  only  be  a  weapon  in  our  hands  to 
gain  our  ends  elsewhere  in  China  proper.  There  is 
a  danger  of  our  chasing  the  Russians  away  from  the 
port  and  then  folding  our  hands  and  congratulating 
ourselves  on  a  diplomatic  triumph. 

While  dealing  with  the  economic  situation  a  word 
must  be  said  about  the  work  of  the  Russo- Chinese 
Bank,  which,  next  to  the  railway,  or  possibly  before 
it,  is  the  great  political  and  economic  factor  in  this 
part  of  the  Chinese  Empire.  For  a  layman  to 
discuss  ever  so  humbly  the  financial  system  of  China 
is  almost  foolhardy.  Yet  there  is  this  about  Man¬ 
churia,  that  one  is  met  there  by  fewer  intricacies 
and  difficulties  than  in  China  proper.  Away  from 
New-chwang  and  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Imperial 
customs  the  tael,  the  protean  unit  which  is  so  baffling 
in  the  rest  of  China,  can  hardly  be  said  to  exist.  In 
China  proper  there  is  a  sort  of  weird  bimetallism  of 
silver  and  copper  cash.  In  Manchuria  the  diao ,  or 


134 


THE  ECONOMIC  SITUATION 


string  of  cash,  is  the  only  real  standard  of  value. 
Silver  is  used  for  purposes  of  exchange,  but  only  at 
its  market  value,  like  other  commodities.  The  Kirin 
dollar  has,  indeed,  been  introduced,  and  the  Governor- 
General  of  Kirin  has  actually  ordained  a  fixed  rate 
of  exchange,  or  at  least  a  minimum  rate,  which 
resembles  the  mystic  sixteen  to  one  of  the  Western 
bimetallists ;  but  so  far  his  attempts  to  establish  an 
arbitrary  ratio  have  not  been  successful,  and  the 
Kirin  dollar  only  floats  on  the  outer  edge  of  Man¬ 
churian  finance.  The  real  unit  and  standard  is  the 
diao ,  and  the  ordinary  currency  for  anything  above 
retail  transactions  consists  of  diao  notes  issued  by 
the  various  merchant  houses  of  the  country — the 
issue  being  nominally  limited  to  the  paying  capacity 
of  the  firms,  but  in  reality  uncontrolled. 

In  such  circumstances  no  stable  system  of  finance 
is  possible.  Even  if  the  diao  had  a  fixed  value, 
there  would  be  no  fixity  about  the  paper  money  in 
circulation ;  but  when  it  is  considered  that  the  diao 
varies  to  an  enormous  extent,  according  to  the  size 
and  purity  of  the  cash  in  each  district,  so  that  in 
Kirin  two  diao  go  to  the  rouble,  while  in  Tieh-ling 
the  exchange  varies  from  eight  to  ten,  one  may  have 
some  faint  notion  of  the  financial  chaos  of  the 
country.  As  a  rule,  the  merchant’s  paper  is  slightly 
depreciated,  and  sometimes  a  firm’s  credit  is  so  low 
that  its  notes  go  begging. 

Such  being  the  state  of  things,  the  paper  rouble 
had  only  to  come  and  to  conquer.  At  first  the 
Russo-Chinese  Bank  was  careful  to  redeem  its  notes 
as  often  as  possible  in  order  to  establish  confidence, 


THE  ECONOMIC  SITUATION 


135 


but  now  that  is  no  longer  necessary,  and  the  rouble 
is  gradually  becoming  the  medium  of  exchange  for 
all  large  transactions.  Indeed,  the  Russo-Chinese 
Bank  might  push  its  paper  to  a  larger  extent  than 
it  does  until  the  rouble  completely  ousted  all  other 
kinds  of  money,  just  as  the  Japanese  yen  has  con¬ 
quered  the  whole  field  in  Korea.  The  same  causes 
in  both  countries  bring  about  the  same  results. 
Paper  money,  which  is  rarely,  if  ever,  counterfeited, 
and  is  easily  redeemable,  is  sure  to  become  popular 
in  a  country  where  transport  is  difficult  and  expen¬ 
sive,  and  where  concealment  is  of  the  first  import¬ 
ance.  Thus  it  comes  about  that  in  China  the 
greatest  law  of  Western  finance  does  not  hold  good, 
for  here  it  is  the  good  money  which  finally  drives 
the  bad  out  of  circulation. 

The  experience  gathered  in  Korea  and  Manchuria 
in  this  respect  goes  to  prove  that  it  would  not  be 
difficult  to  revolutionise  the  whole  desperate  mone¬ 
tary  system  of  China,  for  it  proves  conclusively  that 
the  conservatism  of  the  Chinaman  is  often  only  skin 
deep,  and  is  frequently  fostered  for  the  foreigner’s 
own  ends.  In  reality,  the  Chinaman  is  not  at  all 
averse  from  innovations  if  you  can  demonstrate 
their  utility.  His  rice-bowl  and  chop-sticks  and 
travelling-cart  are  not  due  to  his  primitive  simplicity, 
but  are  rather  the  fine  residuum  of  civilisation. 
He  gave  up  inventing  a  thousand  years  ago,  having 
apparently  worked  out  the  inventive  vein ;  but  the 
quickness  with  which  he  takes  to  railways  and-  tele¬ 
phones  and  convenient  forms  of  money  shows  that 
he  only  lacks  initiative.  The  conservatism  of  the 


136 


THE  ECONOMIC  SITUATION 


Englishman,  for  instance,  is  of  a  more  immoral  kind, 
for,  though  he  does  undoubtedly  possess  the  power 
of  invention,  he  still  adheres  to  ancient  absurdities, 
such  as  our  system  of  pounds,  shillings,  and  pence 
and  our  weights  and  measures,  which  are  not  a 
whit  less  ridiculous  to  the  eyes  of  the  outsider  than 
the  varying  taels  of  China  or  the  fourteen  thousand 
characters  in  Giles’s  Dictionary. 

If  the  truth  must  be  told,  reform  in  Chinese 
currency,  so  sorely  needed,  is  opposed  not  only  by 
ignorant  officials,  but  also  by  the  very  foreigners 
who  laugh  at  the  conservatism  of  the  Chinese.  The 
horrid  intricacies  of  exchange  at  the  Chinese  ports 
are  simply  a  mine  of  wealth  to  the  foreign  banks, 
which  bleed  their  customers  at  every  point ;  and, 
generally  speaking,  when  you  hear  a  foreign  merchant 
in  China  expatiating  on  Chinese  custom  and  the 
difficulties  of  overcoming  it,  you  may  safely  wager 
that  it  is  not  to  his  advantage  to  overcome  it. 

My  precocious  young  friend  in  the  bank  at  Tieh- 
ling  actually  asserted  that  he  intended  to  introduce 
the  tael  into  Manchuria  as  much  as  possible  because 
it  facilitated  banking.  It  would  be  equally  wise  to 
talk  of  introducing  slavery  into  the  State  of  Massa¬ 
chusetts.  But  he  was  an  irresponsible  person,  and 
not  characteristic  of  the  bank.  To  give  the  bank 
its  due,  it  appears  to  be  conducted  with  greater 
skill  in  Manchuria  than  in  the  rest  of  China,  and 
that  is  saying  a  good  deal.  If  one  is  inclined  to 
find  fault  with  its  lack  of  enterprise  in  the  currency 
question,  one  must  admit  that  it  has  already  worked 
wonders,  and  at  best  it  is  dangerous  for  a  layman  to 


THE  ECONOMIC  SITUATION 


137 


venture  on  any  criticism  in  such  matters.  In  the 
bank  there  is  little  race  prejudice ;  Englishmen, 
Scotsmen,  Germans,  French,  Hungarians,  Portu¬ 
guese,  and  Chinese  are  to  be  found  among  its 
employees,  and  the  fact  that  at  least  four  important 
branches  in  the  East  are  managed  by  British  sub¬ 
jects  is  sufficient  proof  of  its  broad-minded  policy. 
As  a  field  for  enterprise,  Manchuria  is  already  at  its 
feet,  and  it  has  not  been  slow  to  make  itself  a  great 
civilising  factor  in  that  country. 


CHAPTER  X 


TRADE  QUESTIONS 

So  much  has  been  said  and  written  about  the  Rus¬ 
sian  occupation  of  Manchuria  that  it  may  be  as  well 
to  form  some  definite  idea  of  what  Manchuria  means 
to  the  world  of  commerce.  Up  to  the  time  of  the 
Boxer  Rising  the  three  Eastern  Provinces  afforded 
an  open  market  of  increasing  importance  to  manu¬ 
facturing  countries.  A  foreign  trade  of  seven 
million  pounds  sterling  may  seem  an  inconsiderable 
trifle  in  comparison  with  the  monster  way-bills  of 
modern  commerce.  But  it  does  not  require  great 
powers  of  reasoning  to  understand  that  the  great 
trading  nations,  like  Great  Britain,  depend  for  the 
prosperity  of  their  export  business  upon  a  number 
of,  comparatively  speaking,  small  customers,  and  if 
they  once  begin  to  neglect  the  small  customers  their 
trade  will  dwindle.  And  to  Great  Britain  especially, 
as  long  as  she  adheres  to  her  Free-Trade  policy,  it  is 
of  the  utmost  importance  to  see  that  the  open 
markets  of  the  world  should  be  increased  rather 
than  diminished  in  number.  On  the  face  of  it, 
therefore,  our  aim  should  be  to  preserve  the  open 
door  in  Manchuria. 

Unfortunately  the  question  cannot  be  reduced  to 
such  simple  terms  as  that.  To  begin  with,  we  might 


TRADE  QUESTIONS  139 

have  to  fight  Russia  in  order  to  prevent  her  putting 
up  a  tariff  wall  round  her  new  acquisition,  and 
then  we  should  immediately  have  to  decide  whether 
our  share  in  this  trade  of  seven  million  pounds  is 
worth  a  costly  war  of  which  the  issue  cannot  be 
foreseen.  On  this  point  our  Government  has  plainly 
made  up  its  mind.  We  will  talk  a  good  deal  and 
even  threaten,  but  we  will  not  fight.  But,  short  of 
fighting,  it  is  still  possible  to  organise  a  combination 
of  ourselves  and  Japan  and  the  United  States  which 
would  be  strong  enough  to  bring  Russia  to  terms 
without  actually  firing  a  shot.  This  could  only 
happen  if  these  three  Powers  are  convinced,  each 
and  severally,  that  a  share  in  the  trade  of  Man¬ 
churia  is  worth  struggling  for.  About  Japan’s 
views  on  the  subject  there  can  be  no  doubt.  She 
has  both  commercial  and  political  reasons  for  op¬ 
posing  Russia  to  the  utmost.  Our  interests  in  the 
matter,  like  those  of  America,  are  mainly  commercial, 
and  we  still  have  to  decide  whether  Manchuria,  even 
when  furnished  with  a  protective  tariff  set  up  by 
Russia,  may  not  be  a  more  profitable  customer  than 
a  free  Manchuria  under  Chinese  rule.  Let  us  re¬ 
member  that,  until  the  Russians  came  to  Manchuria, 
the  vast  area  of  the  three  Eastern  Provinces  was 
almost  closed  to  foreign  travel,  and  was  certainly 
preserved  against  foreign  exploitation  of  any  sort. 
The  enormous  potential  wealth  of  the  country,  and 
especially  its  agricultural  products,  could  only  be 
brought  to  the  one  seaport  by  road  in  winter  or  by 
the  Liao  River  in  summer.  Both  were  most  inade¬ 
quate  as  channels  of  trade,  and  were  subject  to  the 


140  TRADE  QUESTIONS 

system  of  brigandage,  which  had  in  the  course  of 
centuries  been  reduced  to  a  fine  art.  Under  such 
conditions  the  foreign  trade  of  Manchuria  could  never 
be  more  than  insignificant.  So  true  is  this,  that  the 
United  States,  which  already  before  the  Boxer  Bising 
had  secured  the  chief  share  of  the  trade  in  cotton 
goods,  had  no  consular  representative  in  Manchuria, 
and  seemed  to  possess  very  little  information  about 
the  possibilities  of  future  development.  When  I 
visited  New-chwang  in  1901,  the  United  States 
Government  had  just  appointed  a  consular  represen¬ 
tative  to  that  treaty-port,  who  was  immediately  im¬ 
pressed  with  the  enormous  possibilities  of  Manchuria 
as  a  producing  country,  and  the  interest  taken  by 
the  United  States  Government  in  Manchuria  dates 
from  the  arrival  of  his  first  despatch.  Before  that 
time  the  fullest  credence  had  been  given  in  Washing¬ 
ton  to  Bussian  promises,  and  British  incredulity  was 
attributed  to  our  invincible  hostility  towards  Bussia. 
Until  Mr.  Millar  went  to  New-chwang  very  few 
people  in  America  can  have  been  aware  that  the 
cotton  manufacturers  of  the  Southern  States  sent 
piece  goods  to  Manchuria  valued  annually  at  some¬ 
thing  approaching  five  million  dollars.  Manchuria 
was,  and  still  is,  the  one  port  of  the  Chinese  Empire 
which  distinctly  prefers  American  piece  goods  to  the 
products  of  the  Lancashire  looms.  Now  a  business 
amounting  in  value  to  nearly  one  million  sterling 
cannot  be  lightly  set  aside  by  the  cotton  manufac¬ 
turers  of  America,  even  if  it  arouses  little  enthusiasm 
in  the  American  people  at  large.  Hence  it  is  that 
the  attitude  of  the  American  Government  towards 


TRADE  QUESTIONS 


141 


the  Manchurian  question  has  quite  changed  in  the 
last  year  or  two,  and  we  find  Mr.  Hay  clamouring 
for  the  opening  of  new  treaty-ports  in  Manchuria 
and  the  appointment  of  foreign  consuls. 

Great  Britain  must,  of  course,  concur  in  the 
American  point  of  view,  yet  we  may  be  excused 
if  we  regard  with  some  amusement  this  suddenly 
awakened  interest.  Whatever  our  Government 
may  have  been  about,  it  has,  at  all  events,  been 
apparent  to  every  English  writer  on  the  subject  for 
years  past  that  nothing  short  of  war  could  keep 
Russia  out  of  Manchuria  ;  in  fact,  Russian  occupation 
was  almost  taken  for  granted  by  the  leading  organs 
of  the  English  press  even  before  the  Boxer  out¬ 
break.  The  American  press,  on  the  whole,  either 
left  the  subject  alone,  or  preferred  to  lecture  us 
upon  our  prejudices,  while  the  American  Govern¬ 
ment  confined  itself  to  platitudes.  Now,  at  last, 
they  have  discovered  the  true  position  of  affairs  when 
the  game  is  as  good  as  finished.  By  a  great  effort 
the  result  might  possibly  be  altered  at  the  eleventh 
hour ;  but  is  the  game  worth  the  candle  ?  That  is 
a  question  to  which  Mr.  Hay  has  not  yet  been  able 
to  find  a  satisfactory  answer. 

The  total  trade  of  Manchuria,  coming  within  the 
cognisance  of  the  Imperial  Customs,  amounted  in 
1899  to  ,£7,253,643.  This  was  a  record  year  in  the 
trade  of  China,  and  especially  in  the  annals  of 
Manchuria ;  still,  it  might  be  taken  as  fairly  repre¬ 
sentative  of  what  the  foreign  trade  of  the  country 
ought  to  be  under  normal  conditions.  Indeed,  it 
was  freely  prophesied  that  the  year  1900  would 


142  TRADE  QUESTIONS 

produce  a  larger  total.  In  that  year  the  Boxer 
Rising  upset  all  calculations,  and  since  then  the 
total  of  1899  has  not  been  equalled.  In  1901,  when 
a  great  deal  of  the  business  properly  belonging  to 
the  previous  year  was  included  in  the  figures,  the 
respectable  total  of  £6, 251,283  was  reached,  but  in 
1902  the  returns  gave  only  .£5,549,977.  Even  this 
total  was  higher  than  the  average  of  the  last  five 
years,  which  is  perhaps  a  better  standard  to  go 
by  than  a  single  record  ;  yet  the  decline  from 
1899  gives  colour  to  the  assertion  often  made  that 
Russian  occupation  is  ruining  the  foreign  trade  of 
Manchuria.  To  prove  or  disprove  this  assertion 
is  a  matter  of  great  importance  to  all  parties 
concerned ;  for,  however  much  we  may  object  in 
theory  to  the  partial  closing  of  the  Manchurian 
ports,  we  might  still  find  that  the  railway  develop¬ 
ment  and  the  exploitation  of  minerals,  and  the  more 
settled  form  of  government  introduced  by  the 
Russians,  would  amply  compensate  us  for  any  ad¬ 
vantage  they  might  take  to  themselves  by  setting 
up  a  differential  tariff  or  by  bringing  Manchuria 
within  the  sphere  of  the  regular  Russian  tariff. 

A  little  examination  will  show  that  the  figures  of 
the  last  three  years  prove  very  little  either  way. 
The  total  of  the  foreign  trade  for  1902,  though 
showing  an  apparent  decline,  may  really  be  regarded 
as  rather  satisfactory.  I  have  already  pointed  out 
that  the  figures  for  1901  were  swollen  by  the  trading 
transactions  >vhich  belonged  properly  to  the  year  of 
the  Boxer  Rising.  For  example,  hardly  any  of  the 
bean  harvest  of  1900  found  its  way  to  the  port  until 


TRADE  QUESTIONS  143 

the  summer  of  1901,  owing  to  the  increase  of  bri¬ 
gandage  on  the  river.  The  probability,  therefore,  is 
that  there  was  no  real  falling  off  at  all  in  the  trade 
of  1902  as  compared  with  that  of  1901.  There  is 
also  this  to.  be  considered,  that,  even  with  the  extra¬ 
ordinary  conditions  of  the  year  1901,  the  actual  bulk 
of  the  trade  recorded  in  1902  was  greater  than  that 
of  1901,  but  the  sterling  value  was  lower  owing  to 
the  great  drop  of  1 1  per  cent,  in  the  value  of  the 
tael.  In  other  words,  if  we  look  at  the  Customs 
returns,  which  are  given  in  Haikwan  taels,  we  shall 
find  that  the  silver  value  of  the  trade  of  1902  was 
42,692,135  taels  against  the  42,262,209  taels  of  1901. 

Then  there  is  still  another  point  which  must  be 
taken  into  consideration.  In  1902  the  port  of 
Dalny  was  partially  open  to  commerce,  and  the 
railway  from  Dalny  and  Port  Arthur  to  the  north 
was  in  fairly  good  working  order.  Consequently  a 
certain  amount  of  the  trade  which  would  in  other 
years  have  gone  to  New-chwang  went  in  1902  by 
way  of  Dalny  or  Port  Arthur.  There  is  no  method 
for  discovering  the  amount  of  this  trade,  because  no 
duties  were  collected  upon  it  and  no  figures  are 
available.  But  it  is  quite  certain  that  there  was  a 
small  divergence.  For  example,  whereas  American 
oil,  valued  at  £ 5 1 , 20 1 ,  was  brought  into  New-chwang 
in  1901,  the  amount  was  reduced  to  ,£15,416  in 
1902,  because  a  large  quantity  of  Russian  oil  was 
imported  by  way  of  Dalny  or  Port  Arthur  instead. 
Again,  silk  figures  to  a  smaller  extent  in  the  export 
trade  of  New-chwang,  because  that  commodity 
now  leaves  the  country  by  way  of  the  Liao-tung 


144  TRADE  QUESTIONS 

peninsula.  And  so  in  many  small  items  it  may  be 
shown  that  the  new  trade  channel  afforded  by  the 
Manchurian  railway  and  the  new  port  at  Dalny, 
though  it  has  hardly  yet  been  discovered  by  the 
Chinese,  is  beginning  to  have  its  uses  and  must 
very  soon  alter  the  whole  conditions  of  Manchurian 
commerce.  Indeed,  allowing  for  the  fall  in  the 
price  of  silver  and  the  unknown  quantity  of  the 
Dalny  and  Port  Arthur  trade,  it  is  not  too  much  to 
say  that  the  bulk,  if  not  the  sterling  value,  of  the 
whole  foreign  business  of  Manchuria  has  almost 
returned  to  the  high  water-mark  of  1899.  And 
this  is  true  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  whole 
country  was  upset  by  the  Boxer  Rising  of  1900, 
was  further  afflicted  by  a  serious  flood  in  1901  which 
ruined  half  the  crops,  and  is  still  suffering  from  the 
excesses  of  the  brigands,  whose  ranks  were  so  swollen 
by  the  disbandment  of  the  regular  Chinese  troops 
in  1900.  In  a  word,  if  the  Russian  occupation  has 
stopped  the  rapid  growth  which  was  visible  in  the 
five  years  up  to  1899,  there  has  at  least  been  no 
retrograde  movement  of  any  consequence. 

But  what  was  it  that  gave  rise  to  the  great  ex¬ 
pansion  of  trade  in  Manchuria  in  the  last  five  years 
of  the  nineteenth  century  ?  Candour  compels  us  to 
admit  that  the  great  factor  in  this  expansion  was 
the  presence  of  the  Russian  Government  as  railway 
builder  and  concessionnaire.  To  begin  with,  over 
half  a  million  pounds  worth  of  railway  material, 
which  was  imported  by  way  of  New-chwang  in 
1899,  is  no  small  item  in  a  trade  of  seven  millions 
sterling.  But  that  is  only  a  small,  though  concrete, 


TRADE  QUESTIONS  145 

example  of  the  stimulant  given  to  the  imports  by 
the  building  of  the  Russian  railway.  The  demand 
of  so  many  Russian  officers  and  so  many  Russian 
engineers  for  foreign  goods  must  have  added  a  little 
to  the  list  of  imports,  and  the  spending  of  millions 
of  roubles  in  the  country  on  construction  works 
must  have  increased  the  purchasing  power  of  the 
Chinese  themselves  to  a  very  great  extent. 

It  is  a  fact  requiring  very  little  demonstration 
that  before  railways  were  begun  in  China  the  foreign 
trade  of  the  Middle  Kingdom  had  reached  a  limit 
beyond  which  it  could  hardly  go.  It  was  shown 
indeed  very  clearly  by  Mr.  Taylor,  the  able  statis¬ 
tician  of  the  Imperial  Customs,  that  the  sterling 
value  of  the  foreign  trade  of  China  had  remained 
almost  stationary  during  the  last  decade  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  although  the  general  public 
had  been  blinded  to  this  fact  by  the  system  hitherto 
prevailing  of  giving  the  Customs  figures  in  taels 
only,  and  so  showing  an  apparently  constant  but 
really  fictitious  increase.  The  only  year  that  showed 
a  genuine  advance  was  the  record  year  of  1899  ;  and 
I  remember  pointing  out  in  an  article  written  in 
1901  that  this  advance  was  directly  attributable  to 
the  building  of  railways ;  for  it  was  chiefly  obser¬ 
vable  at  Hankow,  Tientsin  and  New-chwang,  treaty 
ports  which  were  particularly  affected  by  railway 
exploitation.  It  is  obvious  enough  that  in  a  country 
like  China,  where  there  has  been  no  educational  or 
industrial  development  in  the  last  five  centuries  ; 
where  population,  as  far  as  we  can  discover,  tends 
to  decrease  rather  than  to  increase ;  where  the 


K 


146  TRADE  QUESTIONS 

mineral  resources  are  still  barely  scratched  on  the 
surface  as  they  were  in  the  days  of  the  Mings,  the 
possibilities  of  foreign  commerce  are  strictly  limited, 
and  depend  largely  upon  the  cost  of  transport.  The 
limit  was  soon  reached  after  the  establishment  of 
the  treaty-port  system  and  the  development  of 
ocean  transport  by  steamer.  Nothing  further  can 
be  done  until  railways  are  built  and  the  mineral 
wealth  of  the  country  is  exploited,  the  latter  pro¬ 
cess  being  dependent  on  the  former.  So  far  we  have 
had  examples  of  railway  development  in  Chih-li  and 
Manchuria,  and  more  recently  still  in  the  case  of  the 
Lu-han  railway  and  the  German  railway  in  Shan¬ 
tung.  And  any  increase  in  the  foreign  trade  of 
China  in  the  last  few  years  has  been  directly  attri¬ 
butable  to  the  building  of  these  railways.  The 
conclusion  is,  that  the  Russian  Government  by 
building  the  Manchurian  railway — and  to  a  much 
smaller  extent  the  British  Corporation  by  building 
the  Shan-hai-kwan  or  New-chwang  line — was  respon¬ 
sible  for  the  rapid  development  of  the  trade  of  New- 
chwang,  which  had  its  climax  in  1899. 

The  Manchurian  Railway  has  been  belittled  by 
many  people — mostly  British — and  to  a  certain 
extent  even  by  Mr.  Hosie,  who,  in  writing  his 
Consular  Report  for  1901,  argues  that  a  single  line 
of  railway  from  Kharbin  to  Dalny  can  never  carry 
half  the  produce  that  the  rich  country  affords.  He 
also,  like  most  travellers  over  the  line,  expatiates 
upon  the  dreadful  delays  and  want  of  punctuality. 
In  answer  to  these  strictures  it  is  only  necessary  to 
point  out  that  it  is  exceedingly  unfair  to  criticise 


TRADE  QUESTIONS  147 

too  closely  a  railway  in  process  of  construction. 
Considering  the  date  of  the  concession,  and  all  the 
troubles  which  followed  so  soon  upon  the  commence¬ 
ment  of  the  work  of  construction,  the  wonder  is  not 
that  it  took  thirteen  hours  to  accomplish  the  railway 
journey  from  New-chwang  to  Dalny  in  1902,  but 
that  it  was  possible  to  make  such  a  journey  by  rail 
at  all.  And  already  that  complaint  is  obsolete, 
because  a  regular  service  has  now  been  established 
over  the  whole  line  from  Dalny  to  Moscow,  and  the 
running  time  in  Manchuria  is  most  satisfactory. 
Most  British  engineers  make  such  premature  criti¬ 
cism  impossible  by  prohibiting  all  passenger  traffic 
on  railways  in  their  construction  period.  And  when 
it  is  urged  that  a  single  line  is  an  inadequate  means 
of  transport  for  such  a  rich  country,  surely  the  critic 
may  be  convicted  of  looking  upon  all  Russian  under¬ 
takings  with  rather  a  jaundiced  eye.  In  what  new 
country  in  the  world  has  a  double  line  of  railway 
ever  been  built  upon  virgin  soil  ?  It  is  indeed  a 
tribute  to  the  richness  of  Manchuria  to  suggest  that 
the  Russians  should  have  done  what  has  never  been 
thought  of  anywhere  else  in  the  world,  and  should 
have  laid  down  2000  miles  of  double  railway  where 
a  railway  never  previously  existed.  In  the  peculiar 
circumstances  of  the  case  such  a  course  was  quite 
out  of  the  question,  for  strategic  reasons  if  for  no 
other.  It  was  absolutely  essential,  in  order  to  fortify 
themselves  in  Manchuria,  that  the  Russians  should 
establish  railway  communication  between  Kharbin 
and  Vladivostok  and  Port  Arthur.  Until  that  com¬ 
munication  was  secured  Port  Arthur  was  in  the  air, 


148  TRADE  QUESTIONS 

and  liable  at  any  moment  to  succumb  to  a  coup  de 
main  on  the  part  of  Japan.  Now  that  the  single 
line  is  completed  the  whole  situation  is  altered, 
and  the  Russian  Government  may  contemplate  the 
doubling  of  the  line  at  its  leisure.  But  this  does 
not  alter  the  fact  that  the  railway  can  already 
handle  an  enormous  volume  of  trade  whenever  the 
trade  is  forthcoming.  Large  tracts  of  agricultural 
land  which  before  were  too  far  from  the  Liao  or  its 
tributaries  to  use  water-transport  are  now  furnished 
with  direct  railway  communication  with  the  sea. 
Adopting  the  most  conservative  point  of  view  the 
exporting  power  of  the  country  has  been  doubled, 
and  the  purchasing  power  correspondingly  increased. 
If  it  is  argued  that  the  trade  reports  do  not  as  yet 
give  any  proof  of  such  an  increase,  it  must  be  pointed 
oat  in  reply  that  the  Liao  river  is  still  more  infested 
by  brigands  than  in  normal  times,  and  the  railway 
has  only  just  been  opened  to  regular  traffic.  It  will 
take  a  year  or  two  yet  before  the  brigands  are 
exterminated,  and  the  Chinese  grain  merchants  have 
awakened  to  the  full  value  of  the  railway. 

Furthermore,  there  is  this  to  be  said  for  the 
Russian  Government,  that  it  has  put  a  stop,  as  far 
as  Manchuria  is  concerned,  to  the  absurd  embargo 
upon  the  export  of  food-stuffs,  and  millet  now 
appears  in  the  list  of  exports.  If  the  Russians 
remain  in  power  Japan  will  in  future  draw  largely 
upon  this  field  of  supply. 

Taking  everything  in  consideration,  therefore,  it 
requires  very  little  argument  to  show  that,  other 
things  being  equal,  the  foreign  trade  of  Manchuria 


TRADE  QUESTIONS 


149 


should  profit  enormously  by  Russian  occupation 
and  Russian  railway  development.  The  only  ques¬ 
tion  is  whether  other  things  will  be  equal  or  not. 
In  other  words,  will  Russia  hinder  the  trade  which 
she  has  created  by  putting  up  tariff  barriers  to 
suit  herself  ?  If  she  does  not  set  up  such  barriers, 
her  presence  in  Manchuria  must  be  of  a  beneficent 
nature.  She  has  already  shown  what  she  can  do 
in  the  way  of  opening  up  rapidly  new  means  of 
communication.  She  has  yet  to  show  that  she 
can  make  peace  in  the  country.  I  have  already 
described  her  methods  of  dealing  with  the  brigand 
scourge  upon  the  river.  These  methods  can  hardly 
be  called  satisfactory.  Nor  has  she  been  altogether 
successful  in  other  parts  of  the  country — away  from 
the  railway  and  main  routes  such  as  that  from  Liao- 
yang  to  the  Yalu  river,  the  country  is  very  unsettled 
and  generally  speaking  in  a  bad  state.  The  Chinese 
provincial  governors  have  been  deprived  of  their 
armies  and  furnished  instead  with  ridiculously  small 
police  forces  which  are  not  kept  up  to  strength  ;  they 
are,  therefore,  incapable  of  dealing  even  as  well  as 
they  used  in  old  times  to  deal  with  the  brigand 
question,  and  that  is  saying  very  little.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  Russians  have  been  too  busy  with 
their  railway  and  with  their  main  strategy  to  pay 
much  attention  to  the  removal  of  the  robber  bands. 
Their  main  object  is  to  protect  the  railway ,  which  they 
do  very  efficiently  with  Cossack  posts  at  intervals  of 
five  versts  all  along  the  line.  They  only  lend  pro¬ 
tection  to  the  bean  boats  on  the  river  because  it  is  to 
their  advantage  to  keep  up  the  local  revenue  of 


150  TRADE  QUESTIONS 

New-chwang.  But  it  does  not  follow  in  the  very- 
least  that  they  cannot  crush  the  brigands  if  they  like 
to  do  so.  It  would  be  a  perfectly  simple  matter,  for 
example,  to  protect  the  river  by  Cossack  posts  as 
they  protect  the  railway,  only  it  must  be  remembered 
that  the  Russians  can  have  no  particular  desire  to 
pacify,  at  great  expense,  a  country  which  they  are 
told  they  must  evacuate.  Moreover  it  is  useful  to 
hold  the  brigands  as  a  sort  of  threat  over  New- 
chwang.  If  the  river  were  completely  abandoned  to 
the  brigands  the  export  trade  of  New-chwang  would 
be  ruined,  and  all  the  beans  would  have  to  go  by 
rail  to  Dalny.  This  would  be  an  extreme  measure 
and  doubtless  a  reprehensible  one,  but  it  is  neverthe¬ 
less  a  measure  which  it  may  suit  the  Russians  to 
keep  in  reserve.  Once  their  position  in  Manchuria 
is  recognised  and  they  are  confirmed  in  their  ad¬ 
ministration  of  New-chwang,  they  will  be  free  to 
turn  their  hands  to  the  pacification  of  the  country, 
and  they  will  make  very  short  work  of  the  wily 
Hun-hu-tze. 

Supposing,  then,  that  Russia  is  allowed  to  carry 
out  her  work  of  civilisation  of  Manchuria  in  her 
own  fashion,  and  no  obstacles  are  put  in  the  way  of 
her  effective  control  of  the  administration  of  the 
country  and  the  development  of  her  railway  system, 
can  any  one  doubt  that,  provided  no  restrictions  are 
put  upon  the  foreign  trade,  that  trade  must  increase 
year  by  year  ?  The  railway  itself  ought  to  double 
the  trade  of  the  three  Eastern  Provinces  in  the  course 
of  the  next  five  years,  and  the  thorough  crushing  of 
the  brigands  should  give  such  a  stimulus  to  com- 


TRADE  QUESTIONS  151 

merce  that  the  seven  millions  of  1 899  may  very  well 
be  increased  to  twenty  millions  in  1909,  especially  if 
the  mineral  resources  of  the  country  are  scientifically 
worked.  And  is  not  that  a  prize  worth  considering  ? 
It  is  impossible  in  the  nature  of  things  to  trace  all 
theforeign  imports  to  their  original  sources, because  so 
much  comes  from  Hong  Kong  or  Shanghai,  and,  with 
the  exception  of  Japan,  there  is  no  foreign  country 
that  does  any  direct  trade  worth  considering  with 
Manchuria.  But  roughly  speaking,  we  have  about 
2  5  per  cent,  of  the  import  trade  still,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  our  American  rivals  have  secured  the 
major  part  of  the  trade  in  cotton  goods ;  and  there 
is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  retain  that  propor¬ 
tion  as  long  as  our  goods  are  not  excluded  by  tariffs. 
And  so  the  whole  question  resolves  itself  into  this  : 
will  Russia  maintain  the  open  door  in  Manchuria  or 
not  ?  Time  alone  can  furnish  the  answer.  But 
judging  from  past  experience  we  are  justified  in 
saying  that  she  will  only  keep  the  ports  open  as 
long  as  it  suits  her  own  policy  to  do  so.  For  many 
years  after  the  acquisition  of  the  Primorsk  Province 
no  attempt  was  made  to  close  the  port  of  Vladivostok, 
for  the  simple  reason  that  Vladivostok  could  not 
possibly  draw  its  supplies  from  Russia.  An  attempt 
was  made  in  1901  to  apply  the  regular  tariff  to  Vladi¬ 
vostok,  but  it  was  soon  found  to  be  impracticable,  and 
so  the  tariff  has  been  reduced.  A  similar  course  will 
doubtless  be  adopted  in  Manchuria.  The  Russian 
Government  is  not  opposed  to  commercial  develop¬ 
ment  ;  on  the  contrary,  commercial  and  industrial 
development  is  the  watchword  of  the  forward  party 


152  TRADE  QUESTIONS 

in  Russia,  though  the  steps  taken  to  secure  that 
development  are  such  as  we  should  generally  con¬ 
sider  unsound.  Hence  we  may  expect  to  see  every 
means  of  exploiting  Russian  trade  adopted  in  Man¬ 
churia,  but  not,  at  first  at  all  events,  anything  in  the 
nature  of  prohibition  of  foreign  imports.  To  any 
small  advantages  given  to  Russian  manufactures, 
however  much  we  may  be  opposed  to  them  in  theory, 
we  need  raise  no  serious  objection  because  our  manu¬ 
factures  and  those  of  Japan  and  America  must 
always  hold  their  own  in  a  market  that  is  practically 
open.  For  example,  Russian  goods  have  theoreti¬ 
cally  been  given  a  reduction  of  30  per  cent,  if  they 
enter  Manchuria  by  rail — in  point  of  fact  they  have 
never  yet  paid  any  duty  at  all.  But  as  no  manu¬ 
factured  goods  coming  from  Russia  by  rail  could 
compete  with  sea-borne  articles  of  the  same  descrip¬ 
tion,  the  preference  given  is  only  nominal.  But 
supposing  that  in  the  course  of  the  next  ten  or 
twenty  years  Russia  so  asserts  her  authority  in 
Manchuria  as  to  incorporate  that  vast  territory  in 
the  Russian  Empire,  what  is  to  prevent  her  applying 
a  prohibitive  tariff  to  the  Manchurian  ports  ?  And 
what  engagements  entered  into  now  would  be  of  the 
slightest  value  then  ?  To  try  and  prevent  her  closing 
the  ports  when  Manchuria  is  part  of  Russia  would 
be  as  futile  as  to  endeavour  to  do  away  with  her 
tariff  regulations  in  the  Caucasus.  Did  not  Russia 
enter  into  a  positive  agreement  with  the  Powers 
not  to  fortify  the  port  of  Batoum,  and  is  there  one 
of  the  Powers  which  dare  now  object  to  the  forti¬ 
fication  of  that  port,  which  is  being  strengthened 


TRADE  QUESTIONS  153 

year  by  year?  We  may,  of  coutse,  take  the  easier 
line  of  believing  Russia  when  she  tells  us  that  she 
will  always  maintain  the  open  door  in  Manchuria, 
or  we  may,  at  all  events,  trust  to  the  wisdom  of 
future  Russian  finance  ministers.  But  to  put  our 
trust  either  in  Russian  promises  or  Russian  finance 
ministers  is  a  course  which  is  almost  certain  to  lead 
to  disappointment.  And  yet  we  obviously  cannot 
or  will  not  go  to  war  with  Russia  on  our  own  account 
in  order  to  vindicate  our  rights  in  Manchuria ;  nor 
will  America  do  so,  nor  will  Japan.  So  far  we  have 
confined  ourselves  to  diplomatic  representations 
which  we  know  to  be  worth  no  more  than  the 
paper  on  which  they  are  written)  unless  they  imply 
a  resort  to  arms  in  the  last  instance.  It  is  true 
that  America  has  been  lately  rather  more  successful 
than  we  have  been.  As  I  am  writing  these  lines,  it 
is  announced  that  Russia  has  at  last  allowed  the 
Chinese  to  consent  to  the  opening  of  at  least  two 
new  treaty  ports  in  Manchuria,  probably  Mukden 
and  Ta-tung-kao.  This,  of  course,  is  merely  a 
promise  which  may  never  be  fulfilled,  and  the  added 
information  that  the  ports  will  only  be  opened  in 
September  of  1903  when  the  evacuation  of  Man¬ 
churia  is  effected,  lends  an  air  of  unreality  to  the 
whole  undertaking.  But  let  us  take  it  for  granted 
that  the  treaty  ports  are  opened  in  September,  or  at 
any  other  time,  what,  finally,  has  been  gained  ?  No 
one  supposes  that  Russia  is  going  to  close  the  ports 
of  Manchuria  immediately,  and,  that  being  so,  it 
really  does  not  interfere  with  her  plans  very  much 
to  have  open  ports  at  Mukden  and  Ta-tung-kao. 


154  TRADE  QUESTIONS 

She  has  already  shown  what  she  can  do  with  a 
treaty  port  by  administering  New-chwang  and 
collecting  the  revenue  there  for  three  years  against 
the  protests  of  all  other  nations  concerned — Germany 
excepted.  The  existence  of  treaty  ports  does  not 
make  any  great  difference  when  the  time  comes  for 
action.  J apan,  for  example,  was  not  prevented  from 
annexing  Formosa  by  our  treaty-port  rights  in  that 
island. 

The  opening  of  Mukden  and  Ta-tung-kao  or  any 
other  ports  in  Manchuria  is  only  a  very  small  move 
in  the  right  direction,  and  small  as  it  is,  Russia 
would  never,  probably,  have  consented  if  it  had  not 
been  pressed  for  by  both  Japan  and  America.  And 
this  brings  us  to  the  only  solution  of  the  whole 
matter,  which  is,  that  to  counteract  the  hostile  in¬ 
fluence  of  Russia,  a  strong  combination  is  required 
on  the  part  of  the  three  countries  directly  interested. 
Germany  should,  properly  speaking,  make  a  fourth ; 
but  Germany  is  not  only  subservient  to  Russia,  but 
she  is  playing  a  game  of  her  own  in  China  which  is 
not  at  all  consistent  with  an  open-door  policy. 
Moreover,  the  three  other  Powers  are  quite  strong 
enough  to  carry  out  their  wishes  in  the  East  as  long 
as  they  are  agreed  as  to  the  basis  of  their  common 
policy.  Japan,  America,  and  Great  Britain  all 
honestly,  and  without  reserve,  desire  the  open-door 
policy  in  China,  but  hitherto  they  have  not  seen  the 
necessity  of  complete  unity  of  action  in  carrying 
that  policy  to  a  successful  issue.  Each  has  been 
afraid,  and  especially,  perhaps,  America,  that  a 
regular  alliance  would  involve  one  or  possibly  two 


TRADE  QUESTIONS  155 

of  the  three  Powers  in  a  war  which  was  only  desired 
by  the  third.  I  shall  endeavour  to  show  in  another 
chapter  that  the  end  aimed  at  could  be  attained 
without  any  serious  danger  of  a  war.  In  fact,  the 
one  thing  which  could  remove  the  constant  state  of 
inflammation  in  the  far  East,  would  be  a  triple 
alliance  of  the  three  Powers  named  directed 
towards  the  maintenance  of  the  open  door  in 
China. 


CHAPTER  XI 


THE  EVACUATION  OF  MANCHURIA 

Ever  since  the  Boxer  Rising  of  1900  the  Russians 
have  been  in  possession  of  the  three  Eastern 
Provinces  of  China  which  in  the  outside  world  go 
by  the  name  of  Manchuria.  Their  troops  are  in 
occupation  of  the  country,  they  give  their  orders  to 
the  Chinese  officials,  and  they  have  collected  the 
revenue  at  the  port  of  New-chwang,  which  by 
treaty  with  the  Powers  is  open  to  all  the  world. 
Even  before  the  Boxer  Rising  Russia  had  acquired 
a  footing  in  Manchuria,  which  was  destined  to  lead 
to  final  annexation.  In  1897  she  had  obtained  the 
concession  for  the  Manchurian  Railway  along  with 
the  right  to  police  the  line  with  her  own  troops  ; 
the  following  year  she  leased  Port  Arthur,  the 
stronghold  which  commands  the  Gulf  of  Pechili ; 
and  in  1899  she  entered  into  an  agreement  with 
Great  Britain  whereby  Manchuria  was  ascribed  to 
her  as  her  special  sphere  of  influence.  But  it  was 
the  Boxer  Rising  which  provided  the  great  oppor¬ 
tunity,  and  the  Russian  Government  was  not  slow 
to  accept  from  the  hand  of  fate  a  prize  which  in 
other  circumstances  could  only  have  been  won  by 
years  of  diplomacy.  The  stars  in  their  courses  were 
fighting  for  the  Tsar.  America,  the  power  whose 


THE  EVACUATION  OF  MANCHURIA  157 


commercial  interests  in  Manchuria  were  of  the 
highest  order,  had  hardly  awakened  to  a  due  sense 
of  her  responsibilities  in  the  Far  East ;  England 
was  sorely  hampered  by  the  South  African  War, 
and  was  further  weakened  by  the  incompetency  of 
her  officials  on  the  spot  at  the  critical  moment ; 
Germany  was,  as  usual,  subservient  to  Russia,  and 
Japan,  with  vital  interests  at  stake,  had  to  choose 
between  a  great  war  which,  whatever  the  result 
might  be,  must  cripple  her  resources  for  years  to 
come,  and  a  policy  of  acquiescence  which  left 
Russia  a  free  hand  as  far  as  Manchuria  was 
concerned. 

The  first  indication  of  Russia’s  aggressive  inten¬ 
tions  after  the  Boxer  Rising  was  given  by  the 
rather  strange  decision  on  the  part  of  the  Tsar’s 
Government  to  withdraw  all  Russian  troops  as  well 
as  the  Russian  Legation  from  Peking  almost  before 
the  peace  negotiations  had  begun.  The  motive  of 
this  move  was  fairly  apparent.  Years  before,  when 
the  French  and  English  troops  were  in  occupation 
of  the  Capital  of  China,  the  Russian  Ignatieff  had 
come  forward  as  the  friend  and  protector  of  the 
Manchu  dynasty,  had  professed  to  act  as  mediator 
in  a  quarrel  where  at  least  one  of  the  parties  had 
not  asked  for  his  services,  and  as  a  reward  for 
an  intercession,  which  never  really  affected  the 
course  of  negotiations,  had  obtained  for  the  Tsar 
the  Primorsk  Province,  with  its  great  waterways, 
its  long  coast-line,  and  its  fine  harbour  at 
Vladivostok.  On  the  present  occasion,  although 
Russia  had  become  more  embroiled  with  China 


158  THE  EVACUATION  OF  MANCHURIA 


through  the  Boxer  Rising  than  any  of  the  other 
Powers,  although  her  troops  had  acted  with  unex¬ 
ampled  severity,  not  to  say  brutality,  in  repressing 
the  semi-national  rising  against  the  foreigner,  she 
was  not  slow  to  make  her  appearance,  as  soon  as 
negotiations  began,  as  the  protector  of  China 
against  the  Europeans.  But  she  had  her  price. 
It  .was  freely  rumoured  in  Shanghai  at  the  time, 
and  subsequent  events  went  to  prove  that  in  this 
case  the  proverbial  Shanghai  rumour  was  not  alto¬ 
gether  a  lie,  that  Li-hung-chang  had  a  private 
agreement  with  Russia,  whereby  Russia  was  to  use 
her  utmost  efforts  to  obtain  the  withdrawal  of  the 
foreign  troops  from  Chih-li,  and  in  return  was  to 
have  a  free  hand  in  Manchuria.  The  report  was 
further  put  about  that  a  similar  offer  was  made  to 
Germany,  who  was  to  acquire  specific  rights  in 
Shan-tung  as  a  reward  for  a  similar  withdrawal. 

I  have  every  reason  to  believe  that  negotiations 
with  this  end  in  view  were  going  on  in  Shanghai 
during  the  autumn  of  1900.  Prince  Outchtomsky, 
the  head  of  the  Russo-Chinese  Bank,  was  in 
Shanghai  in  constant  communication  with  Li-hung- 
chang  ;  and  M.  Pokotiloff,  the  head  of  the  bank  in 
China,  and  Russia’s  most  trusted  agent  in  the  East, 
came  down  from  Peking  to  assist  at  the  conclave. 
The  result  was  that  the  Russian  Minister  did 
actually  withdraw  to  Tientsin  ;  and  all  the  Russian 
troops,  with  the  exception  of  the  railway  guard, 
were  taken  off  to  Manchuria,  where  their  services 
were  much  needed.  In  carrying  out  her  part  of 
the  bargain  Russia  had  everything  to  gain  and 


THE  EVACUATION  OF  MANCHURIA  159 


nothing  to  lose.  She  had  no  particular  object  in 
keeping  troops  in  Chihdi  as  soon  as  negotiations 
with  the  Chinese  w^ere  opened,  especially  as  the 
French  Expedition  was  on  the  spot  to  represent  the 
Dual  Alliance.  As  for  the  withdrawal  of  her 
Minister  to  Tientsin,  the  step  could  only  be  a 
temporary  one,  because  the  presence  of  the  Russian 
Minister  was  necessary  in  Peking  as  soon  as  the 
representatives  of  the  Powers  met  to  discuss  peace 
terms.  And  so  while  Russia  was  posing  as  the 
protector  of  China,  eager  to  relieve  her  of  all 
military  pressure,  she  was  really  only  consulting  her 
own  convenience. 

The  tangible  results  of  the  negotiations  between 
Li-hung-Chang  and  Prince  Outchtomsky  became 
more  and  more  apparent  a  month  or  two  later  by 
the  announcement  of  the  Mukden  Agreement,  which 
was  made  in  the  Times  at  the  close  of  the  year. 
According  to  this  agreement  entered  into  by  the 
Tartar  general  at  Mukden  and  Admiral  Alexeieff, 
Russia  pledged  herself  to  evacuate  Manchuria  on 
certain  conditions,  which  practically  made  Manchuria 
a  Russian  dependency.  This  was  the  first  of  several 
written  agreements  which  Russia  has  attempted  to 
foist  upon  the  Emperor  of  China  down  to  the  present 
year  1903,  when  proposals  still  more  favourable  to 
Russia  have  been  the  cause  of  much  diplomatic 
controversy.  It  would  be  tedious  and  unnecessary 
to  recite  the  exact  terms  of  all  these  evacuation 
proposals,  especially  as  the  most  recent  form  of  the 
agreements  embraces  and  amplifies  all  the  others, 
and  that  I  shall  presently  quote  in  full.  The  main 


160  THE  EVACUATION  OF  MANCHURIA 

points  have  always  been  the  right  of  Russia  to 
assume  the  military  control  of  the  three  Eastern 
provinces,  and  the  power  of  excluding  all  other 
foreign  influence  in  the  shape  of  consuls  or  conces¬ 
sion  hunters.  The  military  control  has  not,  of 
course,  been  demanded  in  so  many  words  ;  that, 
of  course,  wrould  be  contrary  to  the  idea  of  evacua¬ 
tion.  But  as  all  military  resources  are  taken  away 
from  the  Chinese  governors  with  the  exception  of  a 
small  police  force,  the  military  control  of  Russia  is 
directly  implied. 

It  is  not  altogether  plain  why  the  Russian 
Government  desired  to  raise  the  question  of  occu¬ 
pation  in  a  concrete  form  at  a  time  when  she  was 
actually  in  possession  and  unchallenged.  It  is 
understood,  of  course,  that  the  Mukden  Agreement 
was  a  secret  one,  and  would  never  have  been  pub¬ 
lished  but  for  the  activity  of  Dr.  Morrison,  the 
famous  correspondent  of  the  Times.  Against  this 
view  it  is  only  necessary  to  say  that  all  such  agree¬ 
ments  must  sooner  or  later  become  public  property 
in  a  country  like  China,  where  the  Government 
telegraph  is  as  full  of  leaks  as  a  sieve.  The  Times 
correspondent  had  only  hastened  events  by  a  few 
weeks  in  publishing  information  which  even  the 
British  Legation  was  sure  to  obtain  in  the  long  run. 
And  after  all  the  Mukden  Agreement  was  only  a 
more  definite  and  localised  embodiment  of  the  un¬ 
derstanding  which  was  arrived  at  some  months 
earlier  in  Shanghai  by  Li-hung-chang  and  Prince 
Outchtomsky.  The  probable  explanation  of  Russia’s 
action  is  that  she  intended  to  use  the  agreement  as 


THE  EVACUATION  OF  MANCHURIA  161 


a  “  ballon  d’essai,”  and  also  as  a  means  of  accus¬ 
toming  the  world  to  her  position  in  Manchuria. 
Indeed,  what  at  first  blush  looked  liked  a  diplomatic 
blunder,  was  in  reality  a  clever  move. 

The  agreement  could  not  land  her  in  any  serious 
difficulty  with  any  rival  Power,  because  it  formally 
stated  her  intention  of  evacuating  Manchuria.  There 
was  even  a  chance  of  the  Chinese  Emperor  being 
allowed  to  ratify  it,  in  which  case  the  Russian 
position  in  the  three  Eastern  provinces  became  to  a 
certain  extent  legalised.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the 
Powers  persuaded  the  Emperor  to  refuse  his  signa¬ 
ture  the  Russians  were  no  worse  off  than  they  were 
before,  and  they  had  accustomed  the  world  to  look 
upon  their  rights  in  Manchuria  as  at  least  different 
from  those  of  any  other  nation.  As  a  “  ballon 
d’essai  ”  the  agreement  was  unexpectedly  successful. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  a  month  or  two  earlier, 
in  September  of  1900,  England  had  concluded  an 
agreement  with  Germany  whereby  the  territorial  in¬ 
tegrity  of  the  Chinese  Empire  was  guaranteed.  Here 
was  a  splendid  opportunity  of  testing  the  force  of  that 
agreement  which,  when  it  was  made,  was  generally 
understood  to  have  special  reference  to  Manchuria. 
To  the  surprise  and  disgust  of  the  British  public 
the  German  Chancellor  lost  no  time  in  making  it 
abundantly  plain  that  the  agreement  had  nothing 
to  do  with  Manchuria,  where  Germany  had  no 
particular  interests  to  protect. 

It  is  rather  strange  to  look  back  upon  this  little 
episode,  and  to  reflect  that  Lord  Lansdowne,  who 
talks  so  much  nowadays  about  the  loaded  revolver, 

h 


162  THE  EVACUATION  OF  MANCHURIA 


took  this  blow  “  lying  down  ”  without  a  murmur. 
It  is  hard  to  conceive  a  greater  piece  of  diplomatic 
impertinence.  At  the  time  some  effort  was  made 
to  show  that  the  Anglo- German  agreement  only 
referred  to  China  proper,  in  which  the  three  Eastern 
provinces  are  not  included.  But  such  a  contention 
could  not  hold  water  for  a  moment  since  all  the 
territory  of  the  Chinese  Empire  was  brought  within 
the  scope  of  the  document,  and  nothing  at  all  was 
said  about  the  eighteen  provinces.  The  glaring  fact 
remained  that  when  the  ink  was  hardly  dry  upon  the 
Anglo- German  Agreement,  one  of  the  first  triumphs 
of  Lord  Lansdowne  at  the  Foreign  Office,  the  German 
Chancellor  got  up  in  the  Reichstag  and  made  an 
exception  of  Manchuria,  which  rendered  the  whole 
agreement  a  farce.  Nor  was  that  the  only  blow 
aimed  at  British  interests  in  regard  to  this  agree¬ 
ment.  Count  von  Billow  went  on  to  make  it  clear 
that  if  Germany  had  no  interests  in  Manchuria  she 
had  very  special  interests  in  Shantung  from  which 
the  agreement  could  not  oust  her,  whereas  she 
claimed  a  thorough  equality  with  England  in  the 
whole  region  of  the  Yangtse  Valley,  which  had 
been  ascribed  to  England  as  her  sphere  of  influence 
only  a  year  before.  In  fact,  the  Anglo-German 
Agreement  came  to  be  known  in  Germany  as  the 
Yangtse  Valley  Agreement,  because  by  some  extra¬ 
ordinary  device  of  German  logic,  it  was  supposed  to 
secure  Russia  and  Germany  in  their  respective 
spheres,  while  it  opened  up  the  English  sphere  to 
all  the  world.  Lord  Lansdowne  has  since  become 
such  a  valiant  opponent  of  Germany  when  she  brings 


THE  EVACUATION  OF  MANCHURIA  163 


us  Greek  gifts  of  steel  rails,  that  we  must  attribute 
his  ready  acceptance  of  Count  von  Billow’s  extra¬ 
ordinary  behaviour  in  this  matter  to  the  exigencies 
of  the  South  African  War. 

In  the  present  connection  we  are  chiefly  interested 
in  the  Anglo-German  Agreement  of  1900  in  so  far 
as  it  affected  the  Russians  in  Manchuria.  The 
German  Chancellor’s  wonderful  interpretation  of  a 
simply  worded  document  was  remarkable  for  one  or 
two  reasons.  To  begin  with,  it  completely  justified 
the  Russian  use  of  the  “  ballon  d’essai.”  The  sub¬ 
serviency  of  Germany  to  Russia,  as  far  as  the  politics 
of  the  Far  East  were  concerned,  was  made  abundantly 
clear.  It  was  quite  evident  that  Russia  could  go  as 
far  as  she  pleased  in  Manchuria  without  raising  a 
protest  in  Germany.  We,  too,  had  at  least  learned 
a  lesson  through  this  ignominious  rebuff.  If  we 
mean  to  carry  out  an  open-door  policy  in  China  we 
must  leave  Germany  entirely  out  of  the  question. 
We  cannot  trust  her  for  an  instant,  and  we  ought 
never  again  to  give  her  the  chance  of  throwing  us 
over.  It  is  reasonable,  moreover,  to  maintain  that 
the  conduct  of  Count  von  Billow  gave  some  colour 
to  the  report  already  mentioned  that  there  was  a 
sort  of  triangular  agreement  between  Li-hung-chang 
and  Russia  and  Germany,  whereby  the  two  European 
powers  were  confirmed  in  their  respective  spheres  of 
influence.  Such  an  understanding  would  be  directly 
opposed  to  the  policy  of  the  open  door  which  both 
Russia  and  Germany  have  from  time  to  time  ac¬ 
claimed  ;  but  as  neither  power  has  ever  attempted 
to  carry  this  policy  into  practice  in  any  other  part 


164  THE  EVACUATION  OF  MANCHURIA 


of  the  world,  it  need  not  be  supposed  that  either 
sets  much  store  by  it  in  the  East.  On  the  contrary, 
both  Powers  have  already  begun  the  process  of 
partition  in  China. 

The  first  “  ballon  d’essai,”  then,  was  quite  suc¬ 
cessful,  in  so  far  as  it  put  Germany  in  her  place. 
A  second  was  sent  up  early  in  the  course  of  1901  in 
the  shape  of  another  Manchurian  Agreement,  which 
this  time  was  enlarged  in  scope  so  as  to  include 
Mongolia  in  the  Russian  sphere  of  influence.  This 
time  we  made  a  stronger  protest,  and  even  went  so 
far  as  to  admonish  Liu-kun-yi,  the  aged  Viceroy  of 
Nanking,  to  oppose  the  Russian  claims,  thinking 
evidently  that  we  could  do  more  by  stirring  up  the 
Yangtse  viceroys  than  by  vain  appeals  to  Li-hung- 
chang,  who  was  once  more  enthroned  in  power  at 
Peking,  and  was  working  hard  to  satisfy  his  Russian 
protectors.  Among  the  educated  Chinese  the  feeling 
against  Russia  was  growing  so  strong  that  a  mass 
meeting  took  place  at  Shanghai,  in  the  course  of 
which,  if  I  remember  rightly,  a  young  Chinese  lady 
addressed  the  multitude.  However  interesting  this 
event  might  be,  in  marking  a  step  in  the  social 
progress  of  China,  it  had  no  effect  whatsoever  on 
the  Russians,  who  were  quite  capable  of  rating  the 
popular  feeling  of  the  Treaty  Port  Chinese  at  its 
true  value ;  the  fact  being  that  if  one  thing  is  more 
calculated  than  another  to  persuade  the  Chinese 
Court  to  adopt  a  proposal,  it  is  opposition  to  that 
proposal  on  the  part  of  the  Treaty  Port  Chinese. 
What  really  was  important  to  Russia  at  this  junc¬ 
ture  was  the  attitude  of  the  Japanese.  The  Man- 


SEOUL— THE  SQUARE  BEFORE  THE  NEW  PALACE 


THE  EVACUATION  OF  MANCHURIA  165 


churian  Railway  was  not  yet  completed ;  Russian 
troops  were  marching  into  Manchuria  every  day, 
but  reinforcements  were  still  needed  to  strengthen 
the  Russian  position,  and  the  Russian  fleet  was,  of 
course,  greatly  inferior  to  the  Japanese.  If  ever 
J apan  was  going  to  fight  Russia  over  the  occupation 
of  Manchuria,  she  had  her  chance  in  the  early  part 
of  1901. 

What  actually  happened  was  that  the  Japanese 
people  and  press  talked  a  good  deal  about  war,  but 
the  Government,  face  to  face  with  a  financial  crisis, 
with  a  military  and  naval  programme  still  uncom¬ 
pleted,  steadily  refused  to  give  the  reins  to  popular 
sentiment.  The  real  statesmen  in  Japan  knew  that 
a  war  to  recover  Manchuria  could  not  end  success¬ 
fully  if  Japan  had  to  fight  Russia  single-handed,  and 
they  also  knew  that  neither  England  nor  America 
would  be  more  than  neutral  in  such  a  struggle.  But 
when  Russia  intrigued  in  Korea,  and  during  the 
summer  of  1901  attempted  to  get  a  concession  at 
Masampho,  the  attitude  of  Japan  became  much 
firmer,  because  in  such  a  quarrel  she  knew  that  she 
would  be  fighting  upon  her  natural  element,  the  sea. 
Besides,  in  Korea  Great  Britain  showed  her  willing¬ 
ness  to  give  Japan  her  hearty  support,  as  was 
proved  by  the  history  of  the  French  Loan,  which  I 
shall  come  to  in  another  chapter.  But  as  far  as 
Manchuria  was  concerned,  our  Government  felt  that 
there  was  nothing  to  be  done  beyond  bringing  the 
usual  ineffective  diplomatic  pressure  to  bear. 

We  had,  it  is  true,  the  very  best  grounds  for 
action.  Russia  was  not  only  attempting  to  force 


166  THE  EVACUATION  OF  MANCHURIA 


her  Manchurian  Agreement  upon  China,  but  she 
was  still  in  occupation  of  the  Treaty  Port  of  New- 
chwang,  in  direct  defiance  of  all  the  other  Powers. 
Of  course  she  pretended  to  justify  her  occupation 
by  pointing  to  the  foreign  garrisons  in  Tientsin  and 
Shanghai,  but  there  was  no  parallel  between  the 
different  cases.  At  Teintsin  and  Shanghai  the 
foreign  garrisons  were  international.  At  New- 
chwang  the  Russians  alone  were  in  possession,  and 
they  were  using  the  local  revenue  for  their  own 
purposes.  There  was  not  even  an  excuse  on  the 
grounds  of  military  expediency.  The  foreigners  in 
New-chwang  were  as  safe  as  they  could  have  been 
in  Hong- Kong,  and  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  the 
Treaty  Port  of  New-chwang  was  the  only  place  in 
the  whole  of  Manchuria — the  purely  Russian  town 
of  Kharbin  excepted — where  it  was  thought  neces¬ 
sary  to  take  the  local  administration  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  Chinese  or  to  collect  the  local  revenue. 

There  was  no  end  to  Russian  promises  of  evacua¬ 
tion.  When  I  left  New-chwang  in  the  summer  of 
1901  I  was  assured  by  the  British  Consul  that  he 
had  the  best  news  from  Peking,  and  the  Russians 
would  certainly  go  before  the  port  closed  for  the 
winter.  That  was  two  years  ago,  and  the  Russians 
are  still  administering  the  port  and  still  promising 
to  leave  it. 

The  result  of  these  events  was  to  bring  about  the 
Anglo- Japanese  Alliance  of  1901.  Englishmen  who 
had  travelled  in  the  East  had  long  advocated  a 
definite  understanding  between  ourselves  and  Japan 
as  the  readiest  means  of  establishing  an  equilibrium 


THE  EVACUATION  OF  MANCHURIA  167 


in  the  affairs  of  the  East.  The  Government  at 
home  had  generally  adopted  the  view  that  such  an 
understanding  was  unnecessary  because  Japan  was 
our  proteg^  in  any  case  and  was  bound  to  follow 
our  lead.  The  Japanese  understood  this  view  and 
resented  it,  because  they  knew  very  well  that  with¬ 
out  a  written  agreement  Great  Britain  would  never 
move  a  finger  to  extricate  Japan  from  danger  at 
any  great  cost  to  herself.  There  was  no  getting 
away  from  the  fact  that  we  had  allowed  Japan 
to  be  turned  out  of  the  Liao-tung  Peninsula  and 
we  had  sat  perfectly  still  while  Russia  annexed 
what  Japan  had  legitimately  won  by  conquest. 

If  we  could  permit  such  aggression  in  Manchuria 
we  might  equally  acquiesce  in  a  Russian  occupation 
of  Korea,  which  would  level  the  most  deadly  blow 
at  the  independence  of  Japan.  We  were  growing 
supine  in  the  East  and  our  support  was  worth  very 
little  to  any  one.  I  remember  very  well  discussing 
the  subject  with  one  of  the  cleverest  of  the  younger 
Japanese  diplomats  in  the  summer  of  1901,  and  he 
told  me  quite  plainly  that  we  had  only  a  few 
months  longer  in  which  to  make  up  our  minds. 
Either  we  must  come  to  a  definite  understanding 
with  Japan  or  we  must  be  content  to  see  her  go 
over  to  the  arms  of  Russia.  Neither  from  a 
financial  nor  a  political  point  of  view  was  the 
position  of  Japan  any  longer  tenable.  She  was 
daily  incurring  the  risk  of  a  war  with  Russia  in 
which  her  people  would  look,  but  would  probably 
look  in  vain,  for  the  moral  support  of  Great  Britain. 
Unless  she  could  have  the  written  assurance  of  such 


168  THE  EVACUATION  OF  MANCHURIA 


a  support,  the  mere  promise  of  which  would  largely 
obviate  the  danger  of  war,  she  must  make  the  best 
terms  she  could  with  Russia  and  leave  England  out 
of  her  calculations.  This  was  a  very  fair  statement 
of  the  case,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  it  was  put  at 
least  as  strongly  to  Lord  Lansdowne  that  same 
autumn,  with  the  result  that  the  Anglo- Japanese 
Alliance  became  an  accomplished  fact. 

The  consummation  of  this  alliance  has  done  much 
to  restore  the  balance  of  power  in  the  East.  If 
it  does  not  commit  us  to  much  it  at  least  defines 
our  obligations  and  ensures  our  acting  up  to  them. 
And  on  our  side  we  have  gained  an  ally  whose 
political  integrity  is  certainly  equal  to  that  of 
any  Power  in  the  world  and  whose  co-operation 
is  worth  far  more  to  us  than  a  thousand  Anglo- 
German  Agreements  or  Anglo-Russian  under¬ 
standings.  We  can  trust  Japan,  which  is  more 
than  we  can  say  for  either  Germany  or  Russia. 
And  Japan  can  trust  us — when  she  has  our  bond  in 
writing. 

But,  as  we  are  chiefly  interested  for  the  moment 
in  the  Manchurian  Question,  it  must  be  clearly 
understood  that  the  Anglo- Japanese  Alliance  came 
after  the  virtual  annexation  of  Manchuria  by  Russia 
and  it  is  not  retrospective.  Russia  would  never 
have  been  in  occupation  of  Port  Arthur  if  the 
Alliance  had  been  achieved  three  years  sooner. 
Unfortunately  we  cannot  blot  out  the  events  of 
those  three  years,  and  whatever  Lord  Lansdowne 
may  have  said  in  a  general  way  about  the  integrity 
of  the  Chinese  Empire,  he  must  have  given  the 


THE  EVACUATION  OF  MANCHURIA  169 


Japanese  ambassador  very  clearly  to  understand 
that  we,  at  all  events,  would  never  go  to  vrar  to 
turn  Russia  out  of  Manchuria ;  nor  could  the 
obligation  arise,  because  we  are  only  bound  to  fight 
if  Japan  is  attacked  by  two  Powers ;  and  as  Russia 
is  quite  able  to  hold  her  own  single-handed  in 
Manchuria,  she  would  not  be  likely  to  invoke  the 
help  of  her  ally,  France,  at  the  risk  of  dragging 
Great  Britain  into  the  quarrel  on  the  side  of  Japan. 
The  Anglo- Japanese  Alliance  deals  only  with  the 
present  and  future.  It  will  have  a  definite  in¬ 
fluence  upon  the  fate  of  Korea ;  but  it  cannot 
affect  the  political  future  of  Manchuria. 

In  the  meantime  Russia,  though  she  can  hardly 
have  found  the  alliance  to  her  taste,  has  gone  steadily 
on  her  way  in  Manchuria.  Three  years  after  the 
Boxer  rising  she  is  still  in  occupation  of  the  country, 
and  she  evidently  means  to  stay  there.  But  her 
position  is  not  quite  unquestioned  even  now.  The 
summer  just  passed  has  seen  a  recrudescence  of 
the  Manchurian  Question  in  an  acute  form,  with 
America  as  the  chief  opponent  of  Russia. 

Ever  since  March  of  1901  Mr.  Hay  has  kept  up  a 
vigorous  diplomatic  assault  upon  the  Russian  position 
with  unfailing,  if  somewhat  belated,  ardour.  It  was 
not  until  1901,  as  I  have  elsewhere  pointed  out,  that 
the  United  States  awoke  to  their  responsibilities  in 
the  Far  East,  and  especially  in  Manchuria.  It  was 
only  in  1901,  for  example,  that  they  appointed  a 
consular  representative  to  New-chwang,  and  began 
to  take  a  real  interest  in  the  trade  of  the  country. 
Their  object  ever  since  then  has  been  to  guarantee 


170  THE  EVACUATION  OF  MANCHURIA 


at  least  the  commercial  integrity  of  the  Chinese 
Empire,  and  as  a  means  towards  this  end  they  have 
been  pressing  China  to  open  new  treaty-ports  in 
Manchuria  to  the  world’s  trade.  The  Russian 
Government,  as  may  be  readily  understood,  has  no 
intention  of  opening  Manchuria  to  the  trade  of  the 
world  more  than  is  absolutely  necessary.  Hence  new 
steps  were  taken  to  fasten  an  agreement  upon  the 
Chinese  Government  which  would  legalise  Russia’s 
position  in  Northern  China.  As  this  agreement 
amplifies  and  embraces  all*  the  other  abortive  pro¬ 
posals  of  the  last  three  years,  I  give  the  text  in  full 
as  it  appeared  in  the  columns  of  the  Times  on  May 
5>  I9°3  : — 

The  preamble  begins  by  stating  that  by  command 
of  the  Imperial  Government  the  following  communi¬ 
cation  is  sent  :  Russia  and  China  have  been  friendly 
neighbours  for  more  than  two  centuries.  They  have 
a  conterminous  frontier  for  3000  miles.  The  inter¬ 
ference  of  strangers  in  these  mutually  friendly 
relations  would  impair  them,  impeding  a  friendly 
settlement  of  affairs.  Therefore  Russia  considers  it 
her  duty  to  guard  them  against  alien  interference, 
especially  as  affecting  Manchuria.  There  Russia 
has  sacrificed  thousands  of  lives  and  millions  of 
money  in  order  to  pacify  the  country  and  restore 
the  Chinese  lawful  authority.  By  right  of  conquest 
Russia  could  annex  the  country  ;  but  she  is  unwilling 
to  profit  by  this,  and,  as  in  1881  she  returned  Ili  to 
China  and  last  year  the  portion  between  the  Great 
Wall  and  Niu-cliwang,  so  now  she  will  restore 
Mukden  and  Kirin  provinces  and  Niu-chwang 


THE  EVACUATION  OF  MANCHURIA  171 

treaty  port,  provided  China  gives  the  following 
pledges : 

1.  No  portion  of  the  restored  territories  will  be 
transferred  under  any  form  to  another  Power.  If 
this  is  evaded,  Russia  will  take  the  most  decisive 
measures. 

2.  The  present  administration  of  Mongolia  shall 
not  be  disturbed,  because,  if  it  were  altered,  the 
people  would  be  disquieted  and  complications  would 
ensue  along  the  Russian  frontier. 

3.  China  will  undertake  not  to  open  new  treaty- 
ports  in  Manchuria  or  to  permit  new  Consuls 
without  the  previous  assent  of  the  Russian 
Government. 

4.  Should  China  desire  to  employ  foreigners  in 
any  branch  of  her  administration,  their  authority 
shall  not  extend  to  affairs  in  North  China,  where 
Russian  interests  predominate.  There  they  shall  be 
entrusted  to  Russians  only.  For  example,  if  foreign 
mining  advisers  are  engaged,  their  authority  will 
not  extend  to  mining  affairs  in  Manchuria  or  Mon¬ 
golia,  for  which  Russian  advisers  must  be  appointed. 

5.  Russia  will  retain  under  her  own  control  the 
existing  telegraph  line  between  Port  Arthur,  Niu- 
chwang  and  Mukden  for  the  whole  period  of 
existence  of  the  Pekin-Niu-chwang  telegraph  line, 
of  which  it  is  a  necessary  prolongation. 

6.  After  the  restoration  of  the  Niu-chwang 
Chinese  administration  the  Russo- Chinese  Bank 
will  continue  as  at  present  its  functions  as  a 
Customs  bank. 

7.  All  rights  acquired  in  Manchuria  by  Russian 


172  THE  EVACUATION  OF  MANCHURIA 


subjects  during  the  occupation  shall  remain  in  force 
after  the  evacuation. 

Finally,  there  is  a  long  clause  as  epilogue,  stating 
that  Russia,  being  responsible  for  health  along  the 
railway,  requires  the  continuance  of  the  present 
effective  sanitary  board.  It  is,  therefore,  indispens¬ 
able  that  the  Customs  Commissioner  and  the  Customs 
doctor  shall  be  Russians.  The  sanitary  board  must 
consist  of  these  two  officials,  a  Customs  taotai,  the 
Consuls,  a  bacteriologist,  a  representative  of  the 
Russian  railway,  and  a  taotai  to  find  the  requisite 
funds. 

Whenever  an  official  reply  is  received  giving  assent 
to  the  foregoing  conditions  Russia  will  withdraw 
from  Mukden,  Kirin,  and  Niu-chwang. 

The  document  bears  the  signature  of  M.  de 
Plangon,  and  is  dated  April  5  (18). 

These  are  the  final  conditions  upon  which  Russia 
has  promised  to  evacuate  Manchuria.  The  docu¬ 
ment  is  interesting,  not  only  for  its  intrinsic  merits 
but  for  the  circumstances  in  which  it  became  public. 
As  so  often  happens  in  China,  the  gist  of  the  pro¬ 
posals  leaked  out  before  the  exact  terms  became 
public  property,  and  were  telegraphed  to  the 
Times  in  April.  Immediately  Russian  ambassa¬ 
dors  and  the  Russian  semi-official  press  waxed 
indignant  and  denounced  the  first  reports  as  “  pure 
fabrications.”  The  Russian  Foreign  Office  even 
went  so  far  as  to  assure  Mr.  Hay  that  the  terms  as 
given  were  “  absolutely  incorrect,”  and  that  such  a 
document  had  never  been  presented.  It  is  impos¬ 
sible  to  conceive  a  case  of  more  bare-faced  diplomatic 


THE  EVACUATION  OF  MANCHURIA  173 


lying — there  is  no  other  word  for  it.  At  the  very 
moment  when  the  Russian  ambassadors  in  Washing¬ 
ton  and  London  were  denying  the  existence  of  such 
proposals,  and  Count  Lamsdorff  was  assuring  the 
new  American  ambassador  in  St.  Petersburg  that 
Russia  had  not  the  slightest  desire  to  prevent  China 
opening  new  ports  in  Manchuria,  Prince  Ching 
actually  had  the  document,  signed  by  M.  Plancon, 
the  Russian  Charge  d’ Affaires,  in  his  yamen  at 
Peking.  And  all  the  Russians  could  do,  when  this 
document  was  finally  disclosed,  was  to  pretend  that 
M.  Platon  had  no  authority  to  act  in  the  matter. 
The  whole  conduct  of  these  negotiations  was  foolish 
in  the  extreme,  because  it  thoroughly  disgusted 
America  with  Russian  aims  and  methods.  Up  to 
the  present  year  the  tendency  of  the  American 
press  had  been  to  put  a  good  deal  of  faith  in  Russian 
promises  and  to  lecture  us  from  time  to  time  upon 
our  prejudice.  Now  the  real  impossibility  of  trust¬ 
ing  Russia  became  glaringly  apparent.  Not  only 
was  she  caught  red-handed  in  the  most  colossal 
prevarication,  but  she  was  convicted  of  having  tried 
to  bribe  the  United  States  into  acquiescence  in  her 
policy  by  promises  of  special  privileges  in  Manchuria. 
To  the  credit  of  Mr.  Hay  and  the  American  press  it 
must  be  said  that  the  suggestion  was  indignantly 
and  immediately  repudiated.  The  New  York  Tri¬ 
bune  represents  American  opinion  very  clearly  when 
it  says  : 

“  Such  an  arrangement  would  be  offensive  to 
America.  This  country  does  not  want  exclusive 
privileges — it  wants  a  fair  field  and  no  favour.  It 


174  THE  EVACUATION  OF  MANCHURIA 


does  not  want  to  sneak  into  Manchuria  through  a 
specially-prepared  side  door — it  wants  to  enter 
through  the  front  door  open  to  all  the  world  on 
equal  terms.  The  United  States  took  up  from 
British  hands  and  pressed  to  universal  accceptance 
the  policy  of  the  open  door  to  all  nations  on  equal 
terms.  It  pledged  itself  to  the  maintenance  of  that 
policy  to  all  nations.  It  does  not  desire  now  to 
enter  into  a  bargain  with  any  one  Power  for  the 
repudiation  of  that  policy,  or  to  be  associated  with, 
or  in  any  way  profit  from,  such  repudiation.  What 
America  wants  in  Manchuria  and  throughout  China 
is  not  a  new  promise,  but  the  loyal  fulfilment  of 
existing  promises  ;  not  special  privileges,  but  an 
open  door  to  all  lawful  commerce.” 

The  immediate  result  of  the  diplomatic  repre¬ 
sentations  which  followed  the  publication  of  M. 
Platon’s  proposals  was  that  the  Chinese  am¬ 
bassador  at  Washington  promised  to  open  two  new 
ports  at  least  in  Manchuria  and  to  admit  foreign 
consuls.  This  result  was  hailed  as  a  great  victory 
for  American  diplomacy,  but,  unfortunately,  the 
congratulations  were  premature,  since  Prince  Ching, 
Russia’s  henchman  at  Peking,  has  told  Mr.  Conger 
that  China  cannot  give  her  consent  to  the  opening  of 
the  new  ports  ;  in  other  words,  Russia  has  put  her 
veto  upon  it,  so  it  still  remains  to  be  seen  what 
will  happen.  In  the  meantime,  the  Russians  are 
pledged  to  evacuate  Manchuria  in  September — that 
is  to  say,  before  these  pages  see  the  light.  Whether 
they  carry  out  this  promise  in  form  or  not  really 
matters  very  little.  At  the  very  moment  when 


THE  EVACUATION  OF  MANCHURIA  175 


they  talk  of  evacuation  they  are  adding  barracks 
for  10,000  fresh  troops  at  Port  Arthur,  and  at  best 
evacuation  merely  means  increasing  the  railway 
guard  and  withdrawing  the  regular  troops  to  places 
like  Port  Arthur  and  Kharbin.  The  terms  quoted 
above  show  exactly  what  the  evacuation  of  Manchuria 
means.  Russia  has  made  enormous  pecuniary  sacri¬ 
fices  in  Manchuria  and  she  has  every  intention  of 
reaping  her  just  reward. 


CHAPTER  XII 


A  VISIT  TO  SEOUL 

The  summer  of  1901,  which  saw  the  riveting  of 
the  Russian  chains  upon  Manchuria,  was  also  re¬ 
markable  for  a  series  of  intrigues  which  turned  the 
gaze  of  Europe  for  a  moment  to  the  little  Empire  of 
Korea.  Seoul  is  much  more  accessible  to-day  than 
it  was  only  a  few  years  ago,  when  the  present 
Viceroy  of  India  visited  and  described  the  capital  of 
Korea.  There  is  an  excellent  service  of  Japanese 
steamers  running  between  Nagasaki  and  Taku, 
which  call  at  Fusan  and  Chemulpo,  making  a 
delightful  tour — if  there  are  no  cyclones — through 
the  picturesque  Korean  archipelago  ;  and  Seoul  is 
now  joined  to  the  port  of  Chemulpo  by  a  railway 
which  spans  the  Han  river  and  lands  the  traveller 
just  outside  the  walls  of  the  capital  in  the  course  of 
something  over  two  hours  from  the  time  of  leaving 
the  coast.  Nevertheless,  one  is  lucky  if  he  com¬ 
pletes  the  journey  from  Shanghai  to  Seoul  in  less 
than  a  week  going  by  way  of  Nagasaki,  and  the 
Korean  telegraph  is  both  expensive  and  erratic,  so 
that  the  news  of  Seoul  filters  through  very  slowly 
and  with  difficulty  to  the  outer  world. 

For  that  reason  we  never  could  understand  in 
Shanghai  why  there  were  chronic  attempts  on  the 


A  VISIT  TO  SEOUL 


177 


part  of  some  one  connected  with  the  Korean  Govern¬ 
ment  to  turn  Mr.  M’Leavy  Brown  out  of  his  house. 
We  knew  that  Mr.  M’Leavy  Brown  was  the  Com¬ 
missioner  of  the  Korean  Customs,  that  he  was  a 
counterpart  of  Sir  Robert  Hart  in  a  smaller  sphere, 
a  man  of  great  ability,  who  had  gone  from  the  staff 
of  the  Imperial  Chinese  Customs  to  control  the 
foreign  revenue  of  Korea.  He  had  been  appointed 
by  the  Emperor  of  Korea  for  a  period  of  five  years, 
and  had  not  only  conducted  the  affairs  of  his  de¬ 
partment  with  great  success,  but  had  done  a  great 
deal  in  a  general  way  for  the  public  benefit.  It 
was  impossible,  judging  simply  from  the  evidence  to 
hand,  to  imagine  why  the  Emperor  of  Korea  should 
want  to  turn  Mr.  M’Leavy  Brown  out  of  his  house. 
It  was  almost  as  difficult  to  understand  why,  if  the 
Emperor  was  bent  on  the  eviction,  the  Commissioner 
of  Customs  should  not  go  and  find  himself  another 
house.  Vaguely  we  suspected  the  Russians  of  being 
at  the  bottom  of  the  quarrel,  because  a  year  or  two 
before  Russia  had  attempted  to  oust  the  British 
Commissioner  and  put  in  a  man  of  their  own.  But 
in  the  present  instance  there  was  really  nothing 
definite  in  the  news  that  had  reached  us  to  show 
Russian  complicity.  It  was  simply  taken  for  granted 
upon  general  grounds  that  where  a  British  official 
became  the  victim  of  intrigue,  the  Russians  were 
almost  sure  to  have  a  finger  in  the  pie. 

Simultaneously  with  the  case  of  Mr.  M’Leavy 
Brown,  there  was  a  rather  mysterious  attempt  being 
made  upon  the  part  of  the  Yunnan  Syndicate  to 
foist  a  loan  of  five  million  yen  (,£500,000)  upon  the 

M 


178 


A  VISIT  TO  SEOUL 


Korean  Government  with  the  foreign  customs  as 
security.  This  prospective  loan  was  creating  a 
great  deal  of  heart-burning  in  Japan,  where  any 
attempt  to  increase  European  influence  in  Korea 
was  regarded  with  great  suspicion.  But  the 
Japanese  press]  seemed  to  be  rather  uncertain  about 
the  facts  of  the  case,  since  the  loan  was  always 
spoken  of  as  a  French  undertaking,  and  the  Russo- 
Chinese  Bank  was  said  to  be  financing  the  venture, 
although  the  officials  of  the  Bank  in  Shanghai 
denied  all  knowledge  of  the  affair,  and  the  Yunnan 
Syndicate  was  unquestionably  a  British  concern, 
which  had  been  registered  in  London. 

There  was  only  one  way  of  getting  accurate  in¬ 
formation  about  these  matters,  and  that  was  to  go 
to  Seoul  and  make  an  examination  upon  the  spot. 
And  as  it  was  then  the  month  of  May,  when 
Nature  in  Northern  China  is  almost  at  her  best, 
there  was  a  good  deal  to  be  said  in  favour  of  a 
journey  up  the  coast  of  Korea,  with  its  countless 
islands  and  bold  outlines.  There  is  never  any 
difficulty  about  getting  across  to  Nagasaki  from 
Shanghai — there  are  steamers  almost  every  day  of 
the  week,  including  the  German  and  French  mails 
and  the  beautiful  Canadian  Pacific  liners — and  a 
day,  but  not  more,  in  Nagasaki,  with  its  lovely 
harbour,  is  always  pleasant  if  the  rain  keeps  off,  as 
it  does  on  rare  occasions.  But  I  had  not  counted 
upon  half  so  enjoyable  a  journey  up  the  coast  as 
was  virtually  my  lot.  I  found  the  Japanese  mail 
steamer  much  cleaner  and  much  more  comfortable 
than  any  of  the  coasting-steamers  which  ran  up 


A  VISIT  TO  SEOUL 


179 


to  Taku  under  the  British  flag.  Only  it  was  dis¬ 
tinctly  crowded,  and  I  was  compelled  to  share  a 
cabin  with  a  native  of  the  East,  whom  at  first  I 
took  for  a  Japanese  but  soon  discovered  to  be  a 
Korean.  He  was  dressed  in  the  usual  dark 
European  clothes  and  black  “bowler”  hat,  which 
the  J apanese  who  have  become  Europeanised  mostly 
affect,  and  I  was  able  to  come  to  the  conclusion, 
which  was  confirmed  when  I  saw  the  Korean  troops, 
that  if  you  dress  a  Korean  and  a  Japanese  alike 
it  is  very  difficult  to  tell  one  from  the  other. 
Moreover,  the  European  eats  at  the  same  table  with 
the  Japanese  and  Koreans  as  a  matter  of  course  on 
board  these  Japanese  steamers,  whereas  on  the 
Chinese  coast  the  foreigners  and  the  Chinese  are 
kept  as  much  apart  as  possible,  to  the  mutual 
advantage  of  both.  I  noticed  that  my  Korean 
friend,  who  spoke  no  English,  was  deeply  engrossed 
in  Russian  literature,  a  fact  not  without  its 
significance. 

We  called  first  at  Fusan  at  the  southern  end  of 
the  Korean  Peninsula.  There  we  found  ourselves 
in  a  beautiful  harbour,  large  enough  to  hold  a  fleet, 
which  is  now  the  suitable  terminus  of  the  Seoul- 
Fusan  Railway.  The  foreign  settlement  at  Fusan 
is  entirely  Japanese,  with  the  exception  of  a 
missionary  or  two,  and  there  were  then  some  two 
hundred  Japanese  troops  living  in  extremely  com¬ 
fortable  barracks.  Indeed,  the  commercial  town  of 
Fusan  is  to  all  intents  and  purposes  Japanese,  so 
much  so  that  we  even  met  a  Japanese  contingent  of 
the  Salvation  Army  coming  down  the  main  street 


180 


A  VISIT  TO  SEOUL 


with  drums  and  cymbals  and  trumpets  in  full  play. 
The  Korean  town  is  a  wretched  collection  of  mush¬ 
room-like  hovels  a  mile  or  two  to  the  west  of  the 
modern  Fusan. 

After  spending  half  a  day  in  discharging  cargo, 
we  steamed  up  the  coast  to  Chemulpo,  which  is  a 
very  poor  harbour  indeed.  There  is  a  tremendous 
ebb  and  flow  of  the  tide,  which  leaves  a  long  stretch 
of  mud  flats  at  low  water,  and  no  steamer  of  deep 
draft  can  come  much  nearer  than  three  miles  from 
the  shore.  Here,  as  elsewhere  in  Korea,  the  foreign 
element  is  almost  entirely  Japanese,  though  there 
are  one  or  two  British  residents,  and  the  British 
Consulate  is  the  most  imposing  house  in  the  place. 
There  was  a  Japanese  hotel  of  a  sort  that  did  not 
look  very  inviting,  and  I  was  only  too  glad  to  avail 
myself  of  the  offer  of  a  cabin  on  board  a  British 
cruiser  which  was  lying  in  the  roadstead.  Alto¬ 
gether,  though  it  boasts  of  a  foreign  club  where  the 
usual  hospitality  of  the  East  is  extended  to  the 
traveller,  Chemulpo  is  not  exactly  a  charming  spot, 
and  it  is  not  even  likely  to  thrive  very  greatly  in 
the  future  as  a  commercial  centre,  since  Fusan  is 
bound  to  become  the  chief  seaport  of  Korea  as 
soon  as  it  is  joined  to  Seoul  by  the  new  Japanese 
railway. 

A  considerable  section  of  the  British  fleet  was 
assembling  at  Chemulpo  at  the  time  of  my  arrival. 
The  Astrcea  and  the  Isis  and  the  Pique  were  already 
there  ;  the  Barjleur ,  the  rear-admiral's  flag-ship, 
was  coming,  and  it  was  even  reported  that  the 
Terrible  was  under  orders  to  sail  with  a  contingent 


FUSAN 


A  VISIT  TO  SEOUL 


181 


of  Indian  troops  on  board  her.  There  was  evidently 
trouble  in  the  wind,  and  my  first  object  was  to  get 
to  Seoul  as  quickly  as  possible. 

There  is  no  difficulty  about  reaching  the  capital 
in  these  days  ;  the  main  thing  to  be  discovered  is  a 
habitation  when  you  get  there.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  there  is  a  regular  Japanese  quarter  in  Seoul, 
and  wherever  the  Japanese  have  made  themselves 
at  home  you  are  sure  to  find  a  clean  night’s  lodging, 
provided  you  do  not  ask  for  too  many  luxuries ;  and 
those  who  have  travelled  in  Japan  will  probably 
prefer  an  ordinary  Japanese  inn  to  the  sort  of 
apology  for  a  European  hotel  which  is  prevalent 
in  the  East,  and  which  combines  all  the  bad  points 
of  both  civilisations.  Not  knowing  Seoul,  and  having 
forgotten  the  existence  of  a  Japanese  quarter,  I 
went  to  a  French  hotel  which  had  just  been  started 
by  a  Frenchman  who  was  a  passenger  on  board  the 
Japanese  mail.  He  had  secured  a  site  just  opposite 
the  walls  of  the  new  palace,  in  the  very  lowest  part 
of  the  city,  upon  which  he  had  built  a  diminutive 
house  of  two  storeys.  It  was  better  than  nothing, 
because,  being  new,  the  rooms  were  clean,  and  it 
had  the  advantage  of  being  central  in  position  and 
close  to  all  the  legations.  It  also  sheltered  the 
French  agent  of  the  Yunnan  Syndicate  who  had 
engineered  the  famous  loan  which  had  been  creating 
such  a  hubbub ;  so  that  I  was  able  to  get  full 
particulars  on  that  subject  from  the  fountain  head. 
Two  days,  however,  in  the  very  bottom  of  the  city, 
which  is  built  on  ground  more  or  less  resembling 
a  basin  in  shape,  brought  on  a  bad  attack  of 


182 


A  VISIT  TO  SEOUL 


malaria,  and  I  was  fortunately  rescued  from  my 
hotel  and  taken  up  the  neighbouring  hill  to  the 
British  Legation  by  the  British  Charge  d’ Affaires, 
whose  hospitality  I  enjoyed  during  the  rest  of  my 
visit. 

The  British  Legation  is  charmingly  situated  upon 
the  top  of  a  ridge  which  rises  up  in  the  western  half 
of  the  city  and  which  is  now  much  coveted  by  the 
Emperor  as  a  site  for  the  new  palace  he  is  building. 
Seoul  is  full  of  old  palaces,  which  for  one  reason  or 
another  cannot  be  used  any  longer.  In  one  case  a 
snake  fell  off  the  roof  and  made  the  palace  in  the 
north-east  corner  uninhabitable.  The  Middle 
Palace,  which  was  the  predecessor  of  the  present 
one,  was  the  scene  of  the  murder  of  the  Queen  in 
1895,  and  the  associations  of  the  place  are  naturally 
too  sad  to  let  the  Emperor  live  there.  In  conse¬ 
quence  of  that  outrage  he  fled  to  the  Russian 
Legation,  which  is  on  the  top  of  the  afore-mentioned 
ridge,  and  became  so  enamoured  of  the  place  that 
he  determined  to  build  a  new  palace  on  the  same 
hill.  Unfortunately  he  cannot  do  so  without  first 
removing  the  legations  and  the  Customs  buildings, 
which  are  all  on  the  same  ridge ;  or  else  he  must  be 
content  to  build  low  down  on  the  hill  and  be  over¬ 
looked  by  the  British  Legation,  an  intolerable  posi¬ 
tion  for  an  Emperor.  As  it  was,  he  was  building  as 
hard  as  he  could  when  I  was  in  Seoul  in  1901,  and 
needed  as  much  money  as  possible  to  go  on  with  the 
building,  hence  the  necessity  for  the  so-called  French 
Loan ;  he  also  desired  the  whole  of  the  hill  upon 
which  the  Foreign  Legations  and  the  Customs 


A  VISIT  TO  SEOUL 


183 


offices  were  congregated  together,  hence  the 
attempt  to  oust  Mr.  M’Leavy  Brown.  So  it  will 
be  seen  that  the  two  incidents  which  were  dragging 
Korea  from  her  obscurity  into  public  notice,  and 
which  seemed  entirely  disconnected,  had  their 
common  factor  in  the  desire  of  the  Korean  Emperor 
to  complete  his  new  palace. 

The  two  episodes  lent  a  certain  piquancy  to  the 
study  of  Korean  politics  at  the  time,  and  as  I  was 
living  at  the  British  Legation  I  could  not  help 
taking  an  interest  in  the  outcome  of  the  contest 
which  was  being  waged  between  the  British  and 
Japanese  Ministers  on  the  one  hand  and  Franco- 
Russian  intrigue  on  the  other.  For  there  could  be 
no  doubt  that  the  Dual  Alliance  was  at  the  bottom 
of  the  whole  business,  although  the  Russian  Minister 
had  gone  off  rather  ostentatiously  to  Japan  to  see 
one  of  his  Cossacks  cured  of  hydrophobia,  leaving 
his  French  colleague  to  do  the  work  of  the  Alliance. 
The  Koreans  took  very  little  interest  in  the  contest 
except  in  so  far  as  the  money  was  concerned.  They 
did  not  care  in  the  least  what  concessions  they  sold 
or  gave  away,  or  how  they  pledged  the  credit  of 
their  country,  so  long  as  the  Emperor  and  the 
officials  about  him  could  get  some  ready  money  for 
their  immediate  uses.  The  Minister  of  Finance, 
Yong-yik,  was  an  upstart,  without  any  kind  of 
education  and  complete  ignorance  of  the  very  rudi¬ 
ments  of  his  calling.  The  Foreign  Minister,  Pak, 
with  whom  I  had  a  long  interview,  was  an  amiable 
and  well-meaning  person,  but  quite  unable  to  direct 
the  affairs  of  a  nation.  He  was  naturally  opposed 


184 


A  VISIT  TO  SEOUL 


to  the  granting  of  concessions  which  would  give 
a  foreign  Power  a  new  political  influence  in  Korea, 
and  he  honestly  meant  what  he  said,  when  he  told 
me  over  our  sweet  champagne,  that  he  believed 
Great  Britain  to  be  the  truest  and  most  unselfish 
friend  of  his  country.  But  such  expressions  go  for 
very  little  in  the  mouth  of  a  Korean  official,  who  by 
his  very  training  is  incapable  of  vigorous  action. 
One  felt  that  the  real  decision  in  the  existing  dis¬ 
putes  lay  within  the  walls  of  the  British  Legation, 
whose  occupant  was  able  at  a  moment’s  notice  to 
bring  no  small  part  of  a  fleet  to  Korean  waters  and 
to  march  enough  men  to  Seoul  to  overcome  any 
opposition  that  could  be  attempted  by  the  Korean 
army.  The  future  of  such  a  country  depends 
entirely  upon  the  conflicting  ambitions  of  the  Great 
Powers. 

Korea  is  in  fact  a  microcosm  of  the  great  world  of 
the  East.  One  progressive  Power  could  take  her 
and  govern  her,  and  make  a  country  of  her  in  a  few 
years.  But  no  Power  can  act  independently  in  the 
East  without  arousing  the  jealousy  and  hatred  of 
several  others.  So  four  or  five  Powers  are  pecking 
greedily  at  Korea,  squabbling  over  each  mouthful, 
and  confirming  her  in  her  independence  and  conse¬ 
quent  ruin.  And  the  Koreans  are  such  pleasant, 
kindly  people,  so  patient  in  long-suffering,  so  devoid 
of  aggressiveness  or  anti-foreign  prejudice,  or  that 
heaven-high  conceit  which  stamps  the  Chinese,  that 
you  cannot  but  be  mildly  attracted  towards  them, 
and  sorry  for  their  hard  lot.  Regarding  the  Korean 
in  his  loose  white  robes  and  ridiculous  horse-hair 


A  VISIT  TO  SEOUL 


185 


hat,  with  its  broad  flat  brim  and  ribbons  under  the 
chin,  and  taking  into  consideration  the  bovine  stare 
and  hanging  jaw  with  its  sparse  tuft,  you  would 
best  describe  him  as  a  mixture  between  a  Quaker 
and  an  amiable  goat.  Or,  from  another  point  of 
view,  he  resembles  the  pale  ghost  of  what  a  China¬ 
man  was  a  thousand  years  ago.  He  is  more  set  in 
his  ancestor  worship  than  the  Chinese,  more  Con- 
fucianist  than  Confucius,  more  stereotyped  in  his 
dress  than  even  the  blue-skirted  Celestial,  and 
belongs  to  a  social  structure  whose  limitations  are 
adamantine.  If  it  seems  a  hopeless  task  to  lift 
the  Chinaman  out  of  his  groove,  it  is  a  hundred 
times  more  difficult  to  change  the  habits  of  the 
Korean. 

The  Chinaman  has  so  many  good  points  that 
dialectically  it  is  possible  even  to  defend  his  civilisa¬ 
tion  against  our  own.  The  Korean  has  absolutely 
nothing  to  recommend  him  save  his  good  nature. 
He  is  a  standing  warning  to  those  who  oppose  pro¬ 
gress.  Some  one  has  said  that  the  answer  to  Confu¬ 
cianism  is  China ;  but  the  best  and  most  completely 
damning  answer  is  Korea.  Yet  cast-iron  as  the 
Korean  is  in  his  habits,  Korea  must  succumb  to  the 
civilisation  of  the  outer  world  more  quickly  than 
China  because  she  lacks  the  vitality  of  the  larger 
Empire,  and  her  desire  to  repel  the  foreigner  has 
grown  cold.  The  Emperor  commands  no  respect 
and  little  loyalty  at  the  hands  of  his  people ;  his 
overthrow  would  be  regretted  by  few  outside  the 
palace  walls.  The  official  class  is  greedy  and  j  ustly 
hated  by  the  populace,  and  the  same  might  be  said 


186 


A  VISIT  TO  SEOUL 


of  the  Yangban,  or  gentry.  The  brawny  coolie, 
here  as  in  China,  is  really  the  best  product  of  the 
race,  and  if  you  could  only  raise  him  to  the  level  of 
the  European  labourer  something  might  be  done 
with  the  people  as  a  whole.  But  to  imagine  that 
such  a  country  as  Korea,  with  no  knowledge  of  self- 
defence  and  little  inherent  loyalty  in  her  people, 
can  long  retain  her  independence,  in  any  real  sense 
of  the  word,  is  to  imagine  a  state  of  things  such  as 
has  never  yet  existed  in  this  world  of  strife.  Korean 
independence  is  even  now  a  pretence  kept  up  by 
rival  Powers  who  do  not  wish  to  assume  a  sovereignty 
which  might  land  them  at  any  moment  in  a  great 
war. 

As  might  be  imagined  in  the  circumstances,  Korea 
has  become  the  happy  hunting-ground  of  conces- 
sionists.  British,  American,  and  German  syndicates 
are  already  established  on  mining  properties  which 
are,  at  least,  as  promising  as  any  in  China.  The 
Korean  officials,  being  as  corrupt  as  the  Chinese  and 
far  more  foolish,  have  sold  these  mining  rights  for 
little  more  than  a  mess  of  pottage.  When  the 
Chinese  sell  a  mining  concession  they  take  care  to 
reserve  to  themselves  enormous  royalties  such  as  are 
paid  in  no  other  country  in  the  world,  but  the 
Koreans,  being  always  hard  up  for  money,  have 
taken  their  royalties  in  ready  money  and  retain  no 
more  interest  in  the  mines  than  a  modest  rent. 
Naturally  the  mining  companies  do  not  say  much 
about  their  affairs,  the  Americans  and  Germans 
being  particularly  secretive,  but  when  it  is  con¬ 
sidered  that  the  Koreans,  with  their  primitive 


A  VISIT  TO  SEOUL 


187 


methods  of  gold-washing,  exported  ,£300,000  in 
gold  dust  in  1900 — and  this  sum  only  represents 
the  amount  known  to  the  Customs  officials — it  is 
easy  to  see  how  profitable  the  gold  industry  may 
become. 

The  American  companies  have  been  amalgamated 
under  the  name  of  the  Oriental  Consolidated  Mining 
Company.  Five  separate  mines  are  now  being 
worked  and  four  mills  were  in  operation  in  1901, 
with  120  stamps,  and  the  number  is  constantly 
increasing.  In  that  year  £  1 50,000  was  sent  out  of 
the  country  from  the  Company's  mines.  The  pro¬ 
perty  extends  over  800  square  miles,  and  has  a  deep 
water-approach  to  within  a  few  miles  of  the  central 
camp.  There  is  also  an  excellent  supply  of  cheap 
Korean  labour.  Altogether  there  is  no  more  pro¬ 
mising  mining  venture  in  the  whole  of  the  East 
than  this  American  concern  started  by  Mr.  Leigh 
Hunt. 

The  British  Concession  first  obtained  by  Mr. 
Pritchard  Morgan,  and  sold  by  him  to  the  British 
and  Korean  Corporation,  has  almost  equal  prospects 
of  success, though  the  mines  are  not  so  easy  of  access, 
and  specially  constructed  light  draft  steamers  are 
required  to  navigate  the  river  above  Ping-Yang  to 
the  part  of  Unsan  where  the  mines  are  situated. 
The  German  concession  at  Tangokae  has  so  far 
proved  the  least  successful.  But  enough  has  been 
done  by  foreign  enterprise  to  show  that  there  is 
much  mineral  wealth,  including  coal,  to  be  developed 
in  Korea. 

The  French  so  far  have  no  mining  concessions,  but 


188 


A  VISIT  TO  SEOUL 


they  have  hopes,  and  it  was  partly  with  the  object 
of  obtaining  mining  concessions  that  the  Yunnan 
Syndicate  suggested  the  loan  which  was  nearly  car¬ 
ried  through  in  the  summer  of  1901.  This  brings 
us  to  the  question  of  the  Loan  and  the  Customs 
Commissioner  which  first  brought  me  to  Seoul,  and 
must  be  dealt  with  in  a  separate  chapter. 


CHAPTER  XIII 


FRANCO-RUSSIAN  INTRIGUE  IN  KOREA 

The  history  of  the  so-called  French  Loan  is  nowhere 
written  in  the  official  documents  published  by  our 
Foreign  Office,  nor  do  consular  reports  make  any 
mention  of  the  various  intrigues  set  on  foot  to 
remove  Mr.  M’Leavy  Brown  from  his  position  as 
Commissioner  of  Customs  in  the  year  1901.  Yet 
both  episodes  throw  a  strong  light  upon  the  private 
policy  of  the  different  nations  who  have  dealings 
with  Korea.  Moreover,  the  story  of  that  summer 
may  be  told  without  any  regret  as  regards  the  action 
of  the  British  officials  on  the  spot,  which  unfortu¬ 
nately  is  not  often  the  case  where  Northern  China 
is  concerned.  We  may  indeed  congratulate  our¬ 
selves  that  we  had  a  Charge  d’ Affaires  in  Seoul  who 
knew  how  to  take  a  determined  stand  and  to  act 
promptly  and  vigorously.  The  result  was  that  we 
gained  our  point,  and  we  demonstrated  very  clearly 
the  fact  that  a  little  determination  goes  a  long 
way  in  dealing  with  our  political  opponents  in  the 
Far  East. 

The  situation  when  I  arrived  in  Korea  was  rather 
a  curious  one.  The  agent  of  the  Yunnan  Syndi¬ 
cate,  a  certain  M.  Cazalis,  had  succeeded  in  effecting 
an  agreement  with  the  Korean  Ministry  whereby 


190  FRANCO -RUSSIAN  INTRIGUE  IN  KOREA 


the  Syndicate  was  to  advance  the  sum  of  five  million 
yen  (,£500,000)  to  the  Korean  Government  at  5J 
per  cent,  with  the  foreign  Customs  as  security.  The 
debt  was  to  be  paid  off  in  twenty-five  years,  and 
the  money  was  to  be  used  for  the  development  of 
the  Ping-yang  coal  mines  under  French  auspices, 
the  organisation  of  a  mint  and  the  establishment  of 
a  gold  and  silver  currency,  and  also  for  the  additions 
to  the  new  palace.  The  Syndicate,  as  a  reward  for 
its  services,  was  to  receive  certain  mining  conces¬ 
sions,  not  specified  in  the  agreement,  and  was  to  be 
allowed  to  deliver  the  amount  of  the  loan  in  gold 
and  silver  bullion,  making  its  own  price  for  each 
commodity.  No  date  was  fixed  for  the  delivery 
of  the  bullion.  The  agreement  was  signed  by  the 
Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs  and  the  Minister  of 
Finance  on  the  one  hand  and  by  M.  Cazalis,  agent 
of  the  Syndicate,  and  M.  Colin  de  Plancy,  French 
Minister  at  Seoul,  on  the  other.  There  is  no  doubt 
about  the  terms  of  the  agreement,  because  a  copy 
of  the  document  was  procured,  in  the  manner  usually 
adopted  in  the  East,  by  the  Commissioner  of  Cus¬ 
toms,  and  M.  Cazalis  himself  gave  me  a  resume  of 
the  terms  in  a  conversation  which  I  had  with  him  as 
soon  as  I  reached  Seoul. 

Two  things  must  strike  the  most  casual  observer 
as  being  rather  strange.  In  the  first  place,  the 
amount  of  the  loan  is  ridiculously  inadequate  for  the 
purposes  mentioned.  Secondly,  the  French  Minister 
has  no  business  to  back  an  agreement  between  the 
Korean  Government  and  a  British  syndicate.  When 
I  commented  upon  these  two  points  M.  Cazalis  could 


FRANCO-RUSSIAN  INTRIGUE  IN  KOREA  191 


only  reply  that  the  credit  of  Korea  was  not  worth 
more  than  half  a  million  sterling,  and  as  regards  the 
signature  it  would  have  been  impossible  to  obtain 
the  backing  of  the  British  Charge  d’ Affaires,  and 
so  he  had  to  fall  back  upon  M.  de  Plancy. 

Such  an  answer  only  weakened  his  position.  It 
was,  indeed,  quite  obvious  that  no  British  Charge 
d’ Affaires  could  approve  of  a  scheme  which  pledged 
the  foreign  Customs  of  the  country  for  a  paltry  half 
a  million,  and  he  would  be  bound  in  any  case  to 
warn  the  Emperor  against  attempting  to  establish 
a  currency  with  so  small  a  sum.  There  had  been 
attempts  in  the  past  to  introduce  a  Korean  currency 
with  lamentable  results,  and  the  existing  system 
was  really  adequate  for  the  wants  of  the  country 
except  in  so  far  as  the  subsidiary  coinage  was  con¬ 
cerned.  Legal  tender  in  Korea  consists  of  Japanese 
paper  yen  with  a  certain  number  of  silver  yen  and 
half  yen,  none  of  which  are  at  all  likely  to  be 
counterfeited  or  to  become  depreciated ;  for  as  long 
as  Japan  maintains  her  gold  standard — and  she 
seems  to  have  weathered  the  storm  at  last — the 
paper  yen  is  as  good  as  gold.  There  was  at  the 
same  time  a  debased  nickel  currency,  which  is  a 
great  obstacle  to  trade,  especially  away  from  the 
Treaty  Ports  and  Seoul.  The  Government,  in  order 
to  raise  the  wind,  has  made  this  nickel  coinage  legal 
tender,  and  has  contracted  with  an  American  firm  to 
supply  a  large  quantity,  which  it  retails  at  a  price 
90  per  cent,  above  its  market  value.  To  increase 
the  confusion  the  Government  grants  to  certain 
privileged  persons  the  right  to  make  this  nickel 


192  FRANCO-RUSSIAN  INTRIGUE  IN  KOREA 


coinage,  with  the  result  that  the  standard  is  con¬ 
stantly  being  lowered  and  any  number  of  spurious 
coins  are  being  imported  from  Japan  and  elsewhere. 
At  Chemulpo,  according  to  a  consular  report,  there 
are  quotations  for  (i)  Government  nickels;  (2) 
first-class  counterfeits;  (3)  medium  counterfeits; 
and  (4)  those  passable  only  after  dark — which 
shows  what  a  state  the  currency  of  the  country  has 
reached. 

But  no  improvement  could  possibly  be  attained 
by  starting  a  native  gold  and  silver  currency  with  a 
portion  of  the  half-million  to  be  lent  under  the 
agreement.  The  gold  would  disappear  immediately 
from  circulation,  the  silver  would  be  depreciated,  the 
merchants  would  have  to  fall  back  on  the  Japanese 
yen,  and  the  country  would  be  no  better  off  than 
before,  but  would  be  saddled  with  an  unproductive 
debt.  The  part  of  the  capital  sum  to  be  spent  on 
the  Ping-yang  coal  mines  would  benefit  no  one 
except  the  French  engineers,  whose  salaries  would 
be  paid  with  some  regularity  for  a  year  or  two. 
The  Emperor  and  some  of  the  Court  officials  were 
the  only  people  in  Korea  who  would  profit  at 
all.  They  at  least  would  line  their  pockets  for  a 
short  time  and  a  few  rooms  might  be  added  to  the 
new  palace. 

But  the  most  iniquitous  part  of  the  scheme  was 
the  mortgaging  of  the  foreign  Customs.  The  revenue 
of  the  Treaty  Ports  is  the  one  safe  asset  of  the 
Government,  because  it  is  collected  by  Europeans 
under  the  guidance  of  an  English  Commissioner,  and 
so  far  it  had  not  been  mortgaged  to  any  foreign 


FRANCO-RUSSIAN  INTRIGUE  IN  KOREA  193 


bondholder.  It  was  also  the  one  source  of  income 
from  which  money  could  be  obtained  to  carry  out 
much -needed  public  works.  The  streets  of  Seoul,  for 
example,  which,  though  they  leave  a  good  deal  to  be 
desired,  are  still  infinitely  better  than  their  counter¬ 
parts  in  the  capital  of  China,  owe  their  present  con¬ 
dition  to  the  care  of  the  Commissioner  of  Customs, 
who,  being  a  dictator  in  his  own  little  sphere,  is  able 
to  keep  a  portion  of  the  Customs  revenue  away  from 
the  insatiate  maw  of  the  Palace.  It  goes  without 
saying,  therefore,  that  Mr.  M’Leavy  Brown  would 
never  have  consented  to  appropriate  any  part  of  that 
revenue  for  the  service  of  a  loan  made  by  a  foreign 
syndicate  unless  indeed  the  proceeds  of  the  loan  were 
to  be  spent  upon  public  works  of  proved  utility.  Techni¬ 
cally,  perhaps,  his  consent  was  not  necessary,  although 
he  had,  I  believe,  a  verbal  understanding  with  the 
Emperor  when  he  first  undertook  the  work  of  his 
department  that  the  Customs  would  not  be  mort¬ 
gaged  without  his  approval.  But  in  practice,  as  he 
held  the  purse-strings,  he  could  simply  refuse  to  pay 
over  the  interest  on  their  loan  to  the  syndicate,  and 
he  let  it  be  understood  that  he  would  certainly 
pursue  that  course.  This  being  the  case,  Mr. 
M’Leavy  Brown  became  a  stumbling-block  in  the 
path  of  the  members  of  the  syndicate,  who  would 
be  robbed  of  all  security  for  their  loan. 

Technically  also  the  British  Charge  d’ Affaires  could 
not  prevent  the  ratification  of  the  agreement.  But 
he  could,  and  did,  join  the  Japanese  Minister  in 
lodging  a  vigorous  protest  with  Mr.  Pak,  the  Korean 
Foreign  Minister,  against  the  carrying  out  of  a 

N 


194  FRANC0-RUSS1AN  INTRIGUE  IN  KOREA 


scheme  which  was  obviously  detrimental  to  the  best 
interests  of  Korea,  and  which  further  threatened 
to  put  the  Customs  under  the  control  of  an  irrespon¬ 
sible  syndicate.  For  it  must  be  mentioned  that  a 
stipulation  had  been  made  in  the  agreement  that 
Mr.  M’Leavy  Brown,  whose  term  of  office  had  still 
nearly  three  years  to  run,  was  to  be  succeeded  by  a 
French  Commissioner,  who  would,  of  course,  be  a 
nominee  of  the  syndicate. 

M.  Cazalis  resented  very  bitterly  the  action  of 
Mr.  Gubbins,  our  Charge  d’ Affaires,  and  wanted  to 
know  how  a  British  official  could  dare  to  oppose  the 
interests  of  a  British  syndicate.  Some  one,  whose 
name  I  have  forgotten,  but  who  was  connected  with 
the  syndicate  in  London,  also  tried  to  protect  the 
interests  of  the  Yunnan  syndicate  by  a  letter  to  the 
Morning  Post,  in  which  he  attacked  me  for  having 
talked  of  the  loan  as  a  French  undertaking.  But 
neither  the  resentment  of  the  one  nor  the  protests 
of  the  other  could  alter  the  damaging  fact  that  the 
loan  agreement  was  signed,  not  by  Mr.  Gubbins, 
the  British  Charge  d’ Affaires,  but  by  M.  Colin  de 
Plancy,  the  representative  of  France.  The  fact  of 
the  matter  was  that  the  Yunnan  syndicate  was 
British  only  in  name.  It  was  started  originally  by 
a  French  consul  of  an  enterprising  turn  of  mind,  who 
had  secured  large  concessions  in  Yunnan  and  the 
adjacent  provinces  of  China,  and  being  unable  to  get 
all  the  capital  he  wanted  in  Paris  had  gone  to 
London  for  help,  and  had  finally  registered  the 
syndicate  in  London  on  the  grounds  of  expediency. 
What  the  Yunnan  syndicate  had  to  do  with  Korea 


FRANCO-RUSSIAN  INTRIGUE  IN  KOREA  195 


is  not  at  all  clear ;  but  it  is  quite  certain  that  the 
money  for  the  loan  was  to  be  found  not  in  London 
but  in  Paris.  It  was  beyond  all  doubt  a  French 
undertaking,  backed  by  the  French  Minister,  and 
destined  to  give  French  capitalists  a  strong  interest 
in  Korea,  both  of  a  financial  and  a  political  nature. 
It  is  even  possible  that  the  Russo- Chinese  Bank,  as 
the  Japanese  papers  asserted,  was  indirectly  in¬ 
terested,  though  there  was  no  appearance  of  any 
connection  of  that  sort  on  the  surface.  At  all 
events,  there  was  very  little  that  was  British  about 
the  scheme  except  the  name  of  the  syndicate, 
which  was  used  as  a  convenient  cloak  for  French 
designs. 

I  could  quite  sympathise  with  M.  Cazalis  in  his 
disappointment.  The  loan,  if  it  could  have  been 
carried  through,  would  have  been  a  great  achieve¬ 
ment  for  any  syndicate.  The  Customs  revenue  was 
ample  security  for  so  small  a  debt,  and  simply  from 
the  point  of  view  of  an  investor  the  terms  were 
irreproachable,  while  the  promise  of  concessions  was 
an  added  profit  of  unknown  proportions.  M.  Cazalis 
was  to  be  congratulated  on  having  got  within  an  ace 
of  the  ratification  of  the  agreement.  On  the  other 
hand,  Mr.  Gubbins  did  a  real  service,  both  to  Korea 
and  to  his  own  country,  by  setting  his  face  firmly 
against  the  whole  scheme.  He  had  to  act  promptly 
and  forcibly,  since  the  ratification  of  the  Emperor 
had  almost  been  obtained  before  the  facts  about  the 
secret  agreement  leaked  out ;  and  he  was  a  good 
deal  hampered  by  the  use  of  the  name  of  the  British 
syndicate,  and  also  by  the  intrigue  against  Mr. 


196  FRANCO-RUSSIAN  INTRIGUE  IN  KOREA 


M’Leavy  Brown,  which  was  going  on  at  the  same 
time. 

It  would  be  too  much  to  say  that  the  agent  of  the 
syndicate  was  personally  implicated  in  the  intrigues 
against  Mr.  M’Leavy  Brown;  but  it  is  at  least  a 
strange  coincidence  that  there  should  have  been  so 
strong  an  endeavour  at  this  very  moment  to  get  rid 
of  the  man  who  was  the  chief  obstacle  in  the  way  of 
French  aspirations.  On  the  surface,  the  action  taken 
against  the  Commissioner  of  Customs  seemed  to  arise 
out  of  natural  causes.  The  Emperor,  as  I  have 
before  explained,  had  been  driven  to  build  himself  a 
new  residence  owing  to  the  tragic  occurrences  of 
1895,  when  the  Queen  was  murdered  in  the  Middle 
Palace.  There  were  very  few  sites  left  in  Seoul  for 
a  royal  dwelling — the  whole  of  the  North  side  of  the 
city,  which  rises  picturesquely  on  the  slopes  of  the 
hills  to  the  North,  was  already  taken  up  by  the 
buildings  and  grounds  of  deserted  palaces.  The 
rising  ground  to  the  South  was  occupied  by  the 
Homan  Catholic  Cathedral,  the  most  imposing 
edifice  in  Seoul,  and  by  the  Japanese  Legation. 
The  one  remaining  piece  of  high  ground  was  the 
ridge  in  the  Western  half  of  the  city,  whereon  were 
clustered  the  British,  American,  and  Russian  Lega¬ 
tions  and  the  Customs  buildings.  When  the  Queen 
was  murdered  the  Emperor  (at  that  time  he  only 
had  the  rank  of  King)  fled  to  the  arms  of  the 
Russian  Minister,  who  offered  him  the  hospitality 
of  the  Russian  Legation,  and  it  was  during  his  stay 
at  the  Russian  Legation  that  he  decided  to  build 
his  new  palace  on  the  selfsame  ridge,  possibly  with  a 


KOREAN  VILLAGE 


Fran co-ru ssi an  intrigue  in  Korea  197 


view  to  having  a  handy  place  of  refuge  in  any  future 
coup  detat.  It  must  have  been  obvious  from  the 
very  beginning  that  the  site  was  not  suitable  for 
a  palace  unless  most  of  the  existing  buildings  could 
be  removed.  I  believe  the  American  and  British 
representatives  have  always  been  willing  to  be 
bought  out  if  other  sites  could  be  found  for  their 
Legations,  and  of  course  the  Emperor  can  alter  the 
position  of  his  own  Customs  buildings.  But  it  is 
quite  probable  that  the  British  Minister  would 
prefer  to  stay  where  he  is,  not  only  because  it 
would  be  hard  to  find  a  better  position,  but  also 
because  at  present  he  stands  conveniently  between 
the  Emperor  in  his  new  palace  and  the  Russian 
Legation.  In  a  word,  it  is  feared  that  if  the 
British  and  American  Legations  are  moved  the 
Russian  Legation  will  become  an  annexe  of  the 
Palace,  or  vice  versd. 

Difficulties  being  put  in  the  way  of  the  acquisition 
of  the  British  Legation,  the  Emperor  and  his  minions 
had  to  spend  their  force  upon  the  Commissioner. 
But  the  Commissioner,  being  a  British  subject,  could 
not  be  turned  out  bag  and  baggage  as  if  he  had 
been  nothing  but  a  yangban.  The  decencies  must 
be  respected  even  by  Emperors,  and  when  a  posse 
of  eunuchs  was  sent  to  occupy  the  house  of  the 
Commissioner  of  Customs  they  found  that  they  had 
attacked  the  wrong  man.  Mr.  M’Leavy  Brown 
expelled  the  intruders  in  a  summary  fashion,  and 
gave  the  Emperor  to  understand  that  an  English¬ 
man’s  house  was  his  castle.  There  the  matter  rested 
at  the  time  I  came  to  Seoul,  but  it  was  reported 


198  FRANCO-RUSSIAN  INTRIGUE  IN  KOREA 


that  a  certain  day  about  the  end  of  May  had  been 
fixed  for  the  eviction  of  the  recalcitrant  Com¬ 
missioner.  In  the  meantime  Mr.  Gubbins  had  sent 
for  several  men-of  war,  the  rear-admiral  had  come 
over  from  Wei-hai-wei  in  the  Barfleur ,  and  I  take 
it  that  the  Emperor  was  warned  not  to  bully 
Mr.  M’Leavy  Brown  any  longer,  unless  he  wished 
to  find  his  palace  occupied  by  a  British  Naval 
Brigade. 

Now  it  may  be  taken  for  granted  that  Mr. 
Gubbins  did  not  bring  over  a  squadron  to 
Chemulpo  simply  to  keep  Mr.  M’Leavy  Brown  in 
a  house  which  the  Emperor  required  for  his  own 
building  purposes.  Much  greater  interests  were 
at  stake.  To  begin  with,  there  was  every  reason 
to  believe  that  the  Court  party  wished  to  get  rid 
of  Mr.  M’Leavy  Brown  altogether,  for  they  even 
went  so  far  as  to  offer  to  pay  him  his  whole 
five  years’  salary  in  full  and  let  him  go  ;  and  not 
gauging  perhaps  the  pertinacity  of  the  British 
character,  they  imagined  that  by  attacking  his 
house  and  making  things  generally  unpleasant  for 
him  they  would  induce  him  to  go.  As  soon  as  he 
went  the  control  of  the  Customs  would  revert  to 
the  Emperor  or  one  of  his  Ministers,  presumably 
Yong-yik,  the  upstart  Minister  of  Finance,  and 
there  would  be  no  further  difficulty  about  mort¬ 
gaging  the  Customs  revenue  up  to  the  hilt.  The 
British  Government  might  if  it  liked,  without 
foreign  interference,  mortgage  the  income-tax  for 
a  thousand  pounds.  But  the  British  Government 
is  old  enough  to  know  better,  and  no  one  would 


FRANCO-RUSSIAN  INTRIGUE  IN  KOREA  199 


step  in  to  save  it  from  the  consequences  of  its 
own  folly.  The  Korean  Government  is  in  a  different 
position.  It  is  only,  after  all,  a  child  in  leading 
strings,  and  cannot  be  allowed  to  barter  away  its 
heritage  for  a  mess  of  pottage,  however  much  the 
Emperor  or  such  loyal  Ministers  as  Yong-yik  might 
desire  it.  Hence  it  was  the  duty  of  the  British 
representative  to  keep  Mr.  M’Leavy  Brown  in  his 
place,  even  against  his  own  inclination,  and  it  was 
especially  to  the  advantage  of  the  Japanese  Minister 
to  back  up  Mr.  Gubbins  in  his  action,  because  it 
was  directly  to  the  interest  of  the  Japanese  Govern¬ 
ment  to  have  the  Customs  of  Korea  controlled  by  a 
British  subject  rather  than  by  a  Frenchman. 

The  upshot  of  the  whole  matter  was  that  Mr. 
M’Leavy  Brown  was  not  evicted,  and  M.  Cazalis, 
despairing  of  success  on  the  spot,  booked  a  passage 
for  Europe,  vowing  vengeance  on  the  British  Charge 
d’ Affaires  and  promising  to  bring  the  combined 
force  of  the  French  and  British  Governments  to 
bear  upon  the  subject.  The  attempt  to  undermine 
British  influence  at  Seoul  had  for  the  moment  failed, 
and  the  history  of  the  French  Loan,  which  caused 
such  a  stir  in  Japanese  circles  in  1901,  has  passed 
into  the  limbo  of  forgotten  events.  But  there  were 
several  lessons  to  be  learned  from  the  occurrences  of 
that  year  which  should  not  be  allowed  to  be  buried 
in  oblivion. 

It  is  noticeable,  to  begin  with,  that  the  protago¬ 
nists  in  that  little  drama  were  Great  Britain  and 
France.  It  was  really  a  question  of  substituting 
French  influence  for  British.  But  there  were  two 


200  FRANCO-RUSSIAN  INTRIGUE  IN  KOREA 

other  Powers — Japan  and  Russia — who  were  at  least 
as  deeply  involved  in  the  outcome  of  the  struggle. 
Russia  preferred  not  to  appear  at  all  on  the  stage. 
In  fact,  her  Minister,  M.  Pavlolf,  took  great  pains 
to  be  absent  in  Japan,  on  the  plea  that  a  mad  dog 
had  bitten  one  of  his  retinue,  and  the  man  had  to  be 
taken  to  see  a  doctor.  But  if  M.  Pavloff  shunned 
the  footlights,  he  probably  did  useful  work  in  the 
prompter’s  box.  Japan  also  kept  in  the  background, 
for  nominally  the  attack  on  Mr.  M’Leavy  Brown 
and  the  attempts  to  mortgage  the  Customs  was  no 
concern  of  hers.  But  Mr.  Gubbins  and  Baron 
Hayashi  were  in  constant  communication,  and  acted 
in  perfect  harmony  throughout  the  summer.  It 
was,  in  fact,  a  trial  of  strength  between  the  Dual 
Alliance  and  that  other  alliance  of  England  and 
Japan  which  had  not  yet  been  formally  recognised, 
but  had  already  existed  in  the  nature  of  things. 
And  the  informal  alliance  won  the  day. 

It  might  puzzle  an  outside  observer  to  understand 
why  we  took  such  an  interest  in  Korea.  Our  trade 
with  Korea  is  not  nearly  as  large  as  our  trade  with 
Manchuria.  We  have  no  railway  interests  like  the 
Shan-hai-kwan — New-chwang  railway  to  defend,  nor 
are  we  ever  likely  to  acquire  such  interests  in  Korea. 
We  have,  however,  indirect  interests  of  a  far  more 
important  nature.  To  surrender  Korea  to  the  tender 
mercies  of  Russia  would  be  to  create  a  great  naval 
power  in  the  Far  East,  which  would  be  fatal  to  our 
political  and  commercial  position  in  China.  If  ever 
Russia  obtains  a  secure  hold  upon  Korea,  she  not 
only  dominates  Japan  but  becomes  at  once  the  mis- 


FRANCO-RUSSIAN  INTRIGUE  IN  KOREA  201 


tress  of  the  Northern  Pacific.  We  cannot,  therefore, 
abandon  the  Emperor  of  Korea  to  his  fate  without 
doing  incalculable  harm  to  Japan,  our  ally,  and,  what 
is  more  important  still,  without  abandoning  the 
position  we  have  won  for  our  trade  in  the  Far 
East. 

The  question  that  arises  is  :  Did  our  Government 
act  in  this  matter  of  the  Korean  Customs  with  full 
knowledge  of  all  the  consequences  involved  ?  Can¬ 
dour  compels  us  to  acquit  the  Foreign  Office  of  such 
foresight.  It  was  simply  a  matter  of  luck  that  we 
had  a  representative  at  Seoul  who  was  fully  alive  to 
the  dangers  ahead  of  him,  and  who  was  not  afraid 
to  act  quickly  on  his  own  responsibility.  And  when 
such  action  is  taken,  how  easy  it  all  seems !  In  a 
few  days  Mr.  Gubbins  had  assembled  a  naval  force  at 
Chemulpo,  which  completely  overawed  the  Emperor 
of  Korea.  He  did  this  on  his  own  responsibility, 
and  certainly  without  any  encouragement  from  the 
rear-admiral  himself,  who  was  never  tired  of  assert¬ 
ing  that  our  interests  in  the  Yellow  Sea  were  not 
worth  protecting.  And  the  Home  Government  was 
very  lukewarm  in  the  whole  matter.  But  the  result 
was  that  the  French,  who  could  not  produce  a  naval 
squadron  on  the  spur  of  the  moment,  were  quite  put 
out  of  court,  and  the  Russians,  who  could  have  sent 
over  a  battleship  and  a  few  cruisers  from  Port  Arthur, 
were  debarred  from  such  a  demonstration  by  the  fact 
that  outwardly  they  had  no  interests  at  stake. 

We  have  to  learn  from  these  events  the  enormous 
effect  of  visible  force  upon  the  mind  of  an  Eastern 
potentate,  and  also  the  great  value  of  determination 


202  FRANCO-RUSSIAN  INTRIGUE  IN  KOREA 


in  dealing  with  our  European  rivals.  There  is  also 
a  little  consolation  to  be  derived  from  the  knowledge 
that  there  is  apparently  a  special  providence  watching 
over  the  destinies  of  the  British  Empire.  Prompt 
action  on  our  part  would  have  altered  the  whole 
position  of  affairs  at  New-chwang.  There  we  missed 
the  opportunity,  and  New-chwang  goes  to  Russia  as 
it  were  by  default.  But  the  final  result  would  have 
been  the  same  in  any  case,  and  though  we  might 
have  gained  certain  advantages  of  a  temporary  nature 
by  defending  our  interests  in  Manchuria,  we  could 
only  have  delayed,  and  could  not  have  prevented, 
the  Russification  of  Manchuria.  Korea  is  in  a 
different  position.  She  may  be  absorbed  by  Russia 
if  we  stand  aside  and  allow  the  process  to  go  on 
unchecked.  But  there  is  nothing  in  the  nature 
of  things  which  necessitates  the  advance  of  Russia 
in  that  direction.  On  the  contrary,  Korea  is  the 
natural  field  for  Japanese  expansion.  We  are  in¬ 
directly  interested  because,  by  helping  Japan  to 
assert  her  position  in  Korea,  we  not  only  keep  the 
open  door  for  our  trade,  but  secure  something  like 
a  balance  of  power  in  the  Far  East.  We  cannot, 
therefore,  be  too  careful  to  oppose  the  slightest 
attempt  on  the  part  of  Russia,  or  her  ally,  France, 
to  acquire  any  sort  of  financial  control  at  Seoul. 
And  the  little  drama  of  1901  was  of  far  greater 
importance  from  this  point  of  view  than  most  people 
imagined.  Yet  I  am  sadly  convinced  that  the  British 
Government  was  actuated  by  no  real  motives  of  any 
sort  or  description.  It  was  simply  our  luck  to  have 
the  right  man  on  the  spot.  The  trend  of  events 


FRANCO-RUSSIAN  INTRIGUE  IN  KOREA  203 


was  stronger  than  our  statesmen.  But  we  must  not 
forget  to  give  our  representative  full  credit  for  what 
he  did.  The  British  Government  is  too  often  an 
unconscious  agent  of  destiny,  but  it  does  not  follow 
that  its  representatives  in  the  field  are  blind  to  the 
forces  that  are  at  work  around  them. 

It  was  a  pleasing  feature  of  the  events  of  1901  at 
Seoul  that  while  the  Japanese  and  British  Legations 
were  in  constant  communication  with  each  other  the 
United  States  Minister  acted  in  perfect  harmony 
with  both.  Dr.  Allen,  the  American  Minister,  had 
gone  to  Korea  originally  as  a  missionary,  and  had 
risen  to  the  post  of  United  States  representative  at 
the  Court  of  the  Emperor.  He  seemed  to  be  en¬ 
dowed  to  a  large  degree  with  the  practical  common 
sense  of  his  countrymen,  and  he  had  no  doubts 
whatsoever  as  to  which  side  he  should  take  in  the 
long  struggle  between  Russia  on  the  one  hand  and 
Great  Britain  and  Japan  on  the  other.  I  daresay 
that  his  attitude  went  a  long  way  towards  helping 
the  Emperor  to  make  up  his  mind.  If  it  is  true,  as 
I  have  said  before,  that  Korea  is  a  microcosm  of  the 
great  world  of  the  Far  East,  then  the  agreement 
between  England,  Japan  and  America  which  proved 
efficacious  in  Korea  should  be  applied  with  equally 
good  results  in  China. 

Lastly,  the  position  of  France  is  interesting.  It 
is  in  the  Far  East  more  than  anywhere  else  that  the 
influence  of  the  Dual  Alliance  is  strongly  felt.  By 
securing  the  aid  of  France  in  China  and  Korea, 
Russia  not  only  gains  the  weight  of  the  French 
fleet,  but  she  is  able  to  utilise  the  great  political 


m  FRANCO-RUSSIAN  INTRIGUE  IN  KOREA 


power  of  the  Roman  Catholic  priests.  One  has  only 
to  look  at  the  French  Cathedral,  standing  high 
above  the  streets  of  Seoul,  to  recognise  at  once  the 
strong  position  which  has  been  occupied  by  the 
French  missionaries,  who  everywhere  in  the  East 
aspire  to  temporal  as  well  as  spiritual  power.  The 
results  of  that  power  were  well  illustrated  in  the 
attacks  upon  Mr.  M’Leavy  Brown,  for  it  was  partly 
owing  to  the  exertions  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Mission  that  the  Emperor  was  set  against  the  Com¬ 
missioner  of  Customs.  The  priests  accused  the 
Commissioner  not  only  of  laxity  in  performing  his 
duties,  but  of  worse  sins,  which  could  not  possibly 
have  been  attributed  to  him  with  any  show  of 
reason.  M.  Cazalis  repeated  their  accusations  to 
me — the  accusations  being  so  far  fetched  as  to  carry 
their  refutation  on  the  surface — and  thereby  im¬ 
pressed  me  very  strongly  with  the  idea  that  the 
agent  of  the  Yunnan  syndicate  was  not  wholly 
unconnected  with  the  attempts  to  remove  Mr. 
M’Leavy  Brown  from  his  office.  At  all  events, 
there  was  no  attempt  made  to  conceal  the  part 
played  by  the  French  priests  in  the  intrigue ;  and  in 
the  East  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  and  the 
French  Government,  strange  as  it  may  seem  to  a 
Frenchman  at  home,  are  often  indistinguishable. 

This  was  not  the  only  occasion  in  that  year  on 
which  the  Dual  Alliance  was  foiled  in  Korea.  The 
attempt  of  Russia  to  gain  a  footing  at  Masampho 
was  fortunately  nipped  in  the  bud,  but  not  before 
the  strong  desire  of  Russia  to  obtain  a  port  at  the 
south  end  of  the  Peninsula  had  become  apparent. 


FRAN CO-RUSSIAN  INTRIGUE  IN  KOREA  205 


The  French  also  endeavoured  to  gain  control  of  the 
Seoul-Wiju  railway,  which  was  to  act  as  a  set-off 
against  the  Japanese  railway  from  Seoul  to  Fusan, 
and  would  in  time  become  a  useful  extension  of  the 
Russian  railway  system  in  Manchuria.  The  chief 
result  of  their  endeavour  in  that  direction  was 
to  arouse  the  Japanese  Government  to  the  necessity 
of  financing  the  Seoul-Fusan  railway,  the  concession 
for  which  seemed  likely  to  lapse  owing  to  the  diffi¬ 
culty  of  raising  sufficient  funds  in  J apan. 

Altogether,  if  the  year  following  the  Boxer  Rising 
saw  the  establishment  of  Russia  in  Manchuria,  it 
also  witnessed  the  determination  of  Japan,  backed 
up  by  Great  Britain,  to  oppose  all  Russian  and 
Franco-Russian  schemes  in  Korea.  So  far  Japan 
has  been  more  or  less  successful,  but  the  time  has 
now  come  when  Russia,  having  swallowed  Manchuria, 
is  preparing  to  push  her  way  more  aggressively  in 
Korea,  and  it  will  require  the  utmost  vigilance  on 
our  part  and  on  the  part  of  Japan  to  stop  her 
advance. 


CHAPTER  XIV 


THE  PRESENT  SITUATION  IN  KOREA 

The  failure  of  French  agents  to  push  the  interests  of 
the  Dual  Alliance  in  Korea  was  succeeded  by  a  short 
period  of  calm,  during  which  it  seemed  almost 
probable  that  Japan  would  be  allowed  to  establish 
such  a  permanent  footing  in  the  peninsula  as  might 
counterbalance  the  position  of  Russia  in  Manchuria. 
But  the  events  of  1903  have  shown  that  the 
Russians  had  no  idea  of  surrendering  their  claims 
to  Korea. 

There  are  a  number  of  people  in  this  country 
who  believe  that  Russia  is  not  nearly  so  black  as 
she  is  painted,  and  that  half  the  prophecies  which 
are  made  about  her  aggressive  policy  are  the  out¬ 
come  of  an  overheated  imagination.  When  they 
find  that  these  prophecies  have  an  awkward  way  of 
coming  true,  they  fall  back  upon  the  old  assertion,  so 
often  heard  in  the  mouths  of  the  laissez-faire  poli¬ 
ticians,  that  the  Russian  Empire  is  sure  to  break  up 
sooner  or  later  owing  to  financial  and  social  difficulties 
in  Russia.  Unfortunately  this  is  only  an  assertion, 
and  one  which  has  been  made  for  the  last  half-century 
without  any  sort  of  confirmation  in  fact.  Therefore 
it  is  hardly  consistent  with  good  statesmanship  to 
base  our  policy  upon  any  belief  in  the  doom  which  is 


THE  PRESENT  SITUATION  IN  KOREA  207 


said  to  be  awaiting  the  Russian  Empire.  It  will  be 
far  better  for  our  own  interests  and  for  those  of  the 
world  at  large  if  we  take  note  of  what  Russia  has 
actually  accomplished,  of  what  she  is  evidently 
seeking  to  accomplish,  and  of  what  she  must 
logically  accomplish  to  make  her  position  secure. 

Only  a  day  or  two  ago  the  Czar  converted  the 
Amur  Province  and  the  Kwang-tung  (the  leased 
portion  of  the  Liao-tung  peninsula)  into  a  Vice- 
royalty,  and  appointed  as  first  Viceroy  Admiral 
Alexeieff,  the  most  energetic  of  the  Russian 
“  forward  ”  party  in  the  Far  East.  The  new 
Viceroy  is  not  only  to  govern  the  territories 
mentioned,  but  he  is  to  be  responsible  for  the 
forces  guarding  the  Chinese  Eastern  Railway.  As 
the  forces  guarding  the  railway  control  the  whole  of 
Manchuria,  it  is  evident  that  Admiral  Alexeieff  will 
virtually  include  Manchuria  in  his  new  dominions. 
It  was  only  a  few  years  ago  that  Russia,  with  the 
help  of  Germany  and  France,  compelled  Japan  to 
leave  the  Liao-tung  peninsula  on  the  grounds  that 
the  Powers  would  never  consent  to  such  an  encroach¬ 
ment  upon  the  integrity  of  the  Chinese  Empire. 
And  now  not  only  is  part  of  this  same  Liao-tung 
peninsula  included  in  a  Russian  Viceroyalty,  but  the 
whole  of  the  enormous  hinterland  of  the  peninsula  is 
placed  under  the  military  control  of  the  Viceroy.  If 
such  a  step  had  been  taken  only  two  years  ago,  the 
immediate  result  must  have  been  a  war  between 
Russia  and  Japan ;  but  so  rapid  has  been  the  pro¬ 
gress  of  Russia  in  the  last  few  years  that  the 
announcement  of  this  latest  move  hardly  awakens  a 


208  THE  PRESENT  SITUATION  IN  KOREA 


comment  in  our  press.  Ever  since  the  Boxer  rising, 
and  to  a  certain  extent  before  it,  Russia  has  been 
educating  the  world  up  to  the  point  of  regarding 
Manchuria  as  a  Russian  province ;  and  so  successful 
has  she  been  in  her  endeavours  that  she  is  able 
now  to  declare  herself  without  any  great  fear  of 
opposition. 

This  then  is  what  she  has  accomplished.  She  has 
without  a  war  and  almost  without  difficulty,  except 
in  the  shape  of  diplomatic  protests  which  hurt 
nobody,  annexed  to  the  Russian  Empire  the  richest 
portion  of  the  Chinese  Emperors  dominions ;  while 
all  the  rest  of  the  world,  and  even  Russia  herself, 
have  been  solemnly  binding  themselves  to  respect 
the  integrity  of  China. 

Having  seen  this  process  going  on  under  our  very 
eyes,  can  we  be  blind  to  what  she  is  seeking  to 
accomplish  in  Korea  ?  She  had  some  time  ago 
secured  the  control  of  the  railway  from  Manchuria 
to  Seoul  for  the  Dual  Alliance  by  means  of  a 
French  concession.  But  the  French,  who  have 
never  been  very  active  in  carrying  out  their 
schemes  in  the  East,  allowed  the  concession  to 
lapse,  and  the  Korean  Government  now  asserts 
its  intention  of  building  the  railway  itself.  .  Ever 
since  the  French  concession  lapsed,  the  Russian 
Government  through  one  of  its  agents  has  been 
endeavouring  to  get  the  financial  control  of  this 
railway,  which  would  be  a  natural  prolongation  of 
the  Manchurian  system.  So  far,  however,  the 
Korean  Government  has  withstood  the  wiles  of  the 
Russian,  and  insists  on  being  left  to  build  its  own 


THE  PRESENT  SITUATION  IN  KOREA  209 


railway ;  but  there  is  always  a  danger  that  the 
Government,  being  quite  incapable  of  finding  the 
money  necessary  for  the  carrying  out  of  the  scheme, 
will  be  forced  to  turn  to  some  foreign  capitalist  for 
assistance,  and  will  always  find  the  Russian  agent  at 
hand  ready  to  produce  all  the  requisite  funds. 

At  the  present  moment  the  activity  of  Russia  is 
chiefly  visible  on  the  Yalu  River.  As  long  ago  as 
1896,  while  the  Emperor  was  taking  refuge  at  the 
Russian  Legation  in  Seoul,  a  concession  was  granted 
to  a  Russian  living  at  Vladivostok  for  the  timber 
rights  on  the  Korean  bank  of  the  rivers  Tiumen  and 
Yalu.  The  concession  was  afterwards  transferred  to 
the  Russian  Government,  and  timber-cutting  has  now 
begun  on  the  Korean  side  of  the  Yalu  Valley  with  a 
force  of  Cossacks  to  protect  Russian  interests.  This 
is  inserting  the  thin  end  of  the  wedge  with  a 
vengeance.  The  world  at  large  is  still  exercising 
its  mind  over  the  absorption  of  Manchuria  when 
Russian  troops  appear  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Yalu, 
and  the  Russian  Government,  on  the  strength  of  a 
concession  extorted  from  the  Korean  Emperor  when 
he  was  taking  asylum  at  the  Russian  Legation,  de¬ 
mands  the  right  not  only  to  cut  timber,  but  to  put 
up  a  telegraph-line  and  establish  military  posts  on 
Korean  soil !  One  is  bound  to  admire  the  boldness 
and  consistency  of  Russia’s  movements,  but  one  is 
equally  forced  to  wonder  at  the  complacency  of  the 
other  Powers  who  have  commercial  interests  in  the 
Far  East. 

Of  course  the  timber  concession  is  no  great  affair, 
and  300  Cossacks  are  not  a  formidable  force,  and  the 

0 


210  THE  PRESENT  SITUATION  IN  KOREA 


Yalu  is  a  long  way  from  Seoul.  But  it  is  not  the 
size  of  the  force  which  matters  so  much  as  the  prin¬ 
ciple  involved.  Once  Russia  has  acquired  the  right 
to  station  troops  beyond  the  Yalu,  she  can  raise  the 
number  to  almost  any  limit  at  a  moment’s  notice, 
for  she  already  has  garrisons  all  the  way  from 
Liao-yang  to  the  Yalu  which  can  be  drawn  upon  to 
increase  the  force  on  Korean  soil.  And  naturally 
she  is  opposing  the  opening  of  Wi-ju  as  a  treaty 
port,  because  Wi-ju  commands  the  mouth  of  the 
Yalu  on  the  Korean  side  just  as  Ta-tung-kao  com¬ 
mands  it  on  the  Manchurian  bank,  and  to  have  a 
foreign,  and  especally  a  J apanese  settlement,  at 
Wi-ju  might  interfere  with  her  plans  a  good  deal. 
Here,  again,  we  cannot  help  wondering  at  the  trans¬ 
parency  of  Russian  methods.  It  would  be  natural 
for  the  Russian  Minister  at  Seoul  to  use  his  influence 
against  the  opening  of  Wi-ju.  But  M.  Paolofl*  goes 
far  further  than  that.  He  has  openly  objected  to 
the  establishment  of  a  treaty  port  at  Wi-ju  for  no 
other  reason  than  that  it  would  bring  Japanese 
settlers,  and  possibly  a  Japanese  garrison,  to  the 
Yalu  Valley.  In  the  face  of  these  acts  it  is  impos¬ 
sible  not  to  believe  that  Russia  intends  to  fight 
Japanese  influence  in  Korea  to  the  utmost  while  she 
is  doing  everything  in  her  power  to  increase  her  own 
influence  at  Seoul. 

We  must  never  forget  the  immense  strategical 
importance  of  Korea  to  Russia.  It  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  half  the  success  of  her  forward  policy  in 
the  Far  East  depends  upon  the  ultimate  annexation 
of  Korea.  Unless  she  can  annex  Korea  she  can 


THE  PRESENT  SITUATION  IN  KOREA  <R1 


hardly  hope  to  acquire  a  naval  base  on  the  peninsula, 
and  without  a  naval  base  such  as  Masampho  at  the 
southern  end  of  Korea,  her  two  naval  harbours,  Port 
Arthur  and  Vladivostok,  are  cut  off  from  one  another 
and  robbed  of  a  great  part  of  their  potential  value. 
With  Japan  supreme  in  Korea,  Broughton  Channel 
nan  be  made  almost  impassable  for  a  Russian  fleet, 
which  means  that  a  Russian  squadron  at  Port  Arthur 
and  another  at  Vladivostok  would  in  time  of  war 
be  like  two  parallel  straight  lines  which  can  never 
meet. 

Russia  long  ago  saw  the  necessity,  from  her  point 
of  view,  of  keeping  the  control  of  Broughton  Channel 
for  herself  when  she  persuaded  Great  Britain  to  give 
up  Port  Hamilton.  And  ever  since  then  she  has 
been  trying  to  secure  harbour  rights  for  herself  in 
spite  of  the  stipulation  made  by  Great  Britain  when 
she  gave  up  Port  Hamilton  that  Russia  was  on  no 
account  to  occupy  any  portion  of  Korean  territory. 
The  actual  location  of  the  harbour  to  be  acquired  by 
Russia  is  of  no  great  importance,  because  there  are 
any  number  of  good  harbours  at  the  south  end  of 
Korea;  but  the  selection  of  Masampho  in  1901 
showed  exactly  what  Russia  had  in  mind.  It  was  in 
1887  that  we  gave  up  Port  Hamilton  and  Russia 
promised  never  to  occupy  Korean  territory  ;  but 
again,  in  1 894,  the  understanding  was  referred  to  in 
explicit  terms  in  the  House  of  Commons  ;  so  that 
Russia  cannot,  without  risking  a  breach  in  her  rela¬ 
tions  with  Great  Britain,  acquire  territorial  rights  in 
Korea.  Yet  it  is  perfectly  obvious  not  only  that  she 
must  absorb  Korea  in  order  to  round  off  her  position 


212  THE  PRESENT  SITUATION  IN  KOREA 


in  the  Far  East,  but  that  she  is  taking  the  same  sort 
of  steps  to  carry  out  that  absorption  which  were  so 
successful  in  the  case  of  Manchuria. 

It  might  be  argued  that  we  as  a  nation  are  still 
less  interested  in  the  fate  of  Korea  than  we  were  in 
that  of  Manchuria.  Our  commercial  stake  in  the 
country  is  very  small,  because  the  entire  foreign 
trade  of  Korea  does  not  much  exceed  two  and  a  half 
millions  sterling.  Our  share  of  that  trade  consists 
in  the  importation  of  cotton  goods  and  yarn,  and 
even  in  that  department  we  come  second  to  Japan, 
who  is  gradually  driving  us  out  of  the  field.  There¬ 
fore  it  can  hardly  be  worth  our  while  to  fight  Russia 
for  the  possession  of  the  Korean  market. 

I  have  already  pointed  out,  in  discussing  the 
trade  of  Manchuria,  that  this  sort  of  argument, 
plausible  as  it  is,  must  not  be  allowed  to  have  undue 
weight.  If  we  abandon  the  neutral  markets  one  by 
one,  because  each  by  itself  is  unworthy  of  our  atten¬ 
tion,  we  shall  after  a  time  find  the  markets  of  the 
world  closed  to  us.  There  is  no  reason  why,  after 
abandoning  Manchuria  and  Korea  we  should  not 
with  equal  reason  give  up  the  province  of  Chih-li  to 
Russia.  We  have  already  allowed  a  preference  to 
Germany  in  Shan-tung,  and  very  soon  we  shall  be 
asking  ourselves  whether,  after  all,  the  trade  of  the 
Yangtze  Valley  is  sufficiently  valuable  to  warrant  us 
in  going  to  war  with  Germany  to  defend  it.  There 
is  no  end  to  the  policy  of  running  away  when  it  is 
once  begun.  We  have,  therefore,  to  make  a  stand 
somewhere.  Many  people  think  we  ought  to  have 
made  it  in  Manchuria,  that  we  ought  never  to  have 


THE  PRESENT  SITUATION  IN  KOREA  213 


abandoned  Port  Arthur,  and  that  we  still  ought  to 
force  Russia  to  carry  out  her  promises  of  evacuation. 
Whether  they  are  right  or  wrong,  it  is  fairly  obvious 
that  we  have  lost  our  opportunity  in  Manchuria  and 
that  the  British  public  will  never  countenance  a  war 
which  has  as  its  object  the  reconquest  for  China  of 
its  lost  provinces.  But  it  is  not  too  late  to  take  a 
firm  stand  over  Korea.  And  we  must  remember, 
too,  that,  although  the  Korean  market  is  a  small 
affair  to-day,  it  may  become  of  considerable  import¬ 
ance  before  long.  Korea  is,  in  the  first  place,  a  gold- 
producing  country  of  great  promise.  Already  half 
-a  million  pounds  worth  of  gold  dust  is  exported 
from  the  treaty  ports,  to  say  nothing  of  what  is 
smuggled  out  of  the  country.  It  is  impossible  to  say 
how  far  that  export  of  gold  may  be  increased  in 
future  years,  but  it  can  hardly  fail  to  reach  con¬ 
siderable  proportions,  seeing  that  the  gold  industry 
has  only  been  exploited  by  foreign  capital  during 
the  last  three  years.  We  may  take  it  for  granted, 
therefore,  that  the  purchasing  power  of  Korea  will 
increase  to  a  large  extent  as  time  goes  on  under  any 
form  of  government,  and  in  the  consequent  increase 
of  trade  we  shall  have  our  share  if  the  ports  are  not 
closed  to  us.  And  if  Japan  were  to  gain  complete 
control  of  Korea  and  could  introduce  there  a  better 
form  of  government,  it  is  hard  to  put  any  limits  to 
the  increase  of  prosperity  which  might  be  looked  for. 
Korea  has  already  the  materials  for  improvement. 
Her  working  class  is  strong  and  industrious  when¬ 
ever  there  is  a  chance  of  industry  being  rewarded. 
At  present  the  labourer  has  no  inducement  to  work 


214  THE  PRESENT  SITUATION  IN  KOREA 


because  he  is  robbed  of  every  penny  that  he  can  earn 
beyond  the  bare  means  of  subsistence.  Under  a 
better  form  of  government  Korea  would  be  not  only 
a  gold-producing  country  but  a  granary  for  Japan. 
On  economic  grounds  alone,  therefore,  it  is  worth  our 
while  to  save  Korea  from  the  domination  of  any 
Power  which  would  close  the  ports  against  its  com¬ 
mercial  rivals. 

But  the  commercial  point  of  view  is  not  the  only 
one  in  the  East.  We  have  our  political  future  to 
take  care  of,  and  it  would  be  a  serious  blow  indeed 
to  our  political  interests  if  Russia  were  to  annex 
the  peninsula  of  Korea.  To  begin  with,  the  posses¬ 
sion  of  Korea,  with  all  its  splendid  harbours,  would 
infallibly  make  Russia  the  greatest  naval  power  in 
the  Far  East ;  it  would  also  give  her  a  splendid  base 
for  operations  against  Japan  ;  so  much  so  that  Japan 
would  inevitably  become  a  vassal  state  at  the  beck 
and  call  of  the  Tsar.  That  is  not  a  state  of  things 
which  we  can  contemplate  with  any  satisfaction,  for 
it  would  mean  the  eventual  breaking  up  of  the  Anglo- 
Japanese  alliance,  for  which  would  be  substituted  a 
Russo-Japanese  understanding  excluding  us  from  all 
political  influence  in  Northern  China.  The  loss  of 
Northern  China  would  be  followed  by  so  great  a  loss 
of  prestige  that  we  should  finally  be  compelled  to 
abandon  even  the  advantages  which  we  have  gained, 
and  gained  for  the  world  at  large,  in  the  Yangtze 
Valley.  In  fact,  we  should  cease  to  be  a  predominant 
factor  in  the  Far  East. 

If  we  were  compelled  to  surrender  the  great 
position  which  we  have  made  for  ourselves  during* 


THE  PRESENT  SITUATION  IN  KOREA  215 


the  nineteenth  century  by  any  great  danger  threaten¬ 
ing  us ;  if  we  had  to  pay  any  enormous  price  to 
maintain  that  position,  there  might  possibly  be 
arguments  on  both  sides  of  the  question.  But 
when  we  can  save  Korea  and  check  the  advance  of 
Russia  without  any  danger  to  ourselves,  with  hardly 
any  great  outlay  of  money  or  ships,  but  simply  by 
taking  a  firm  stand  now  and  making  up  our  minds 
as  to  the  course  we  mean  to  pursue,  then  it  is  almost 
impossible  to  conceive  any  British  statesman  hesi¬ 
tating  for  a  moment. 

The  difficulties  in  the  way  of  turning  Russia  out 
of  Manchuria  are  enormous,  even  supposing  that  we 
had  the  desire  to  attack  her  there.  Neither  we  nor 
Japan  could  hope  to  hold  for  very  long  a  country 
like  Manchuria,  or  any  part  of  it,  which  would  have 
no  natural  frontier  to  protect  it  against  the  long 
pressure  of  Russia’s  huge  army.  But  Korea  is  in  a 
totally  different  position.  Russia  has  not  established 
herself  there  in  any  great  force,  and,  being  a  penin¬ 
sula,  Korea  is  at  the  mercy  of  the  Power  that  rules 
the  seas  in  the  Far  East.  She  also  has  a  land  frontier 
of  considerable  strength  in  the  great  bulwark  of  the 
Long  White  Mountain,  which,  with  its  subsidiary 
ranges,  separates  Manchuria  from  Korea.  In  fact, 
Korea  can  only  be  attacked  on  the  land  side  by  two 
roads — one  coming  from  Vladivostok  to  the  north, 
and  another  coming  from  Liao-yang  to  the  west,  and 
both  these  roads  could  be  easily  defended  against 
the  invaders. 

As  things  stand  at  present,  Russia  is  certainly  not 
prepared  to  fight  Japan  at  sea,  and  still  less  so  when 


216  THE  PRESENT  SITUATION  IN  KOREA 


she  knows  that  Japan  would  enjoy  the  benevolent 
neutrality  of  Great  Britain.  If  she  calls  in  France 
to  her  aid,  the  French  fleet  will  be  counterbalanced 
by  the  British  Navy,  so  that  Russia  would  gain 
nothing  by  invoking  the  Dual  Alliance.  It  would, 
therefore,  be  quite  possible  for  Japan,  at  the  present 
moment,  to  assert  her  control  over  Korea  as  a  reply 
to  the  action  of  Russia  in  Manchuria  without  taking 
more  than  a  remote  risk  of  war ;  and  England  should 
encourage  Japan  to  take  this  step,  which  would 
prevent  for  ever  the  annexation  of  Korea  by  Russia. 
If  it  is  argued  that  very  little  consideration  for 
Korea  would  be  shown  by  such  an  arrangement,  it 
is  only  necessary  to  point  out  in  reply  that  Korea  at 
present  enjoys  almost  the  worst  government  in  the 
world.  The  Emperor  and  his  Court  are  completely 
devoid  of  patriotism  or  of  any  real  solicitude  concern¬ 
ing  the  welfare  of  the  people.  The  Emperor  is  only 
intent  on  building  himself  new  palaces,  and  his  Court 
wants  money  for  its  own  purposes.  Outside  of  the 
Court  there  are  only  two  classes :  the  Yang-ban,  or 
gentry,  and  the  labouring  people.  The  Yang-ban 
batten  upon  the  lower  class,  which  is  really  composed 
of  people  who  are  to  all  intents  and  purposes  serfs. 
Nothing  could  be  worse  than  the  present  state  of 
things.  When  people  talk  about  maintaining  the 
independence  of  a  country  like  Korea,  and  regard 
any  attempt  to  destroy  that  independence  as  a 
political  crime,  they  evidently  forget  that  inde¬ 
pendence  for  Korea  means  simply  freedom  for  the 
Emperor  to  maltreat  and  rob  his  subjects.  There  is 
no  independence  at  present  for  the  Korean  people. 


THE  PRESENT  SITUATION  IN  KOREA  217 


They  would  be  a  thousand  times  better  off  under 
Japanese  rule,  and  we,  as  a  free  people,  should  rather 
see  Korea  lose  her  nominal  independence  than  allow 
the  wretched  people  of  that  country  to  continue  in 
their  existing  state  of  serfdom. 

And  it  must  also  be  remembered  that  Japan  has 
established  her  right  to  govern  Korea.  She  went  to 
war  with  China  to  release  Korea  from  the  Chinese 
yoke,  she  has  brought  in  many  reforms  into  the 
country,  notably  in  the  shape  of  an  army,  railways, 
post-office,  and  telegraph-office.  The  only  trust¬ 
worthy  currency  in  the  country  is  Japanese,  and  the 
first  bank  of  Japan  is  now  issuing  its  own  notes  and 
is  assuming  the  same  sort  of  position  in  Korea  as 
the  Russo- Chinese  Bank  has  acquired  in  Manchuria. 
Lastly,  there  are  now  nearly  40,000  Japanese  resi¬ 
dents  in  Korea  against  less  than  500  of  any  other 
foreign  nationality,  and  Fusan,  which  is  practically  a 
Japanese  town,  is  a  model  of  what  all  the  ports  of 
Korea  might  become.  By  every  rule  of  the  game 
Korea  belongs  to  Japan,  and  could  become  a  Japanese 
dependency  to-morrow  if  we  would  use  our  influence 
to  that  end.  If  we  do  not,  there  is  a  very  grave 
danger  that  Russia  will  continue  to  push  her  influ¬ 
ence  in  the  country  until  she  thinks  she  is  powerful 
enough  to  defy  Japan  even  in  Korea,  and  then 
Japan  must  either  abandon  the  field  or  fight.  A 
little  determination  on  our  part  now  would  not  only 
involve  very  little  risk  for  war,  but  would  actually 
prevent  war  becoming  a  certainty. 


CHAPTER  XV 


GERMAN  AMBITIONS 

Before  we  can  arrive  at  any  definite  conclusions  as 
regards  our  policy  in  China,  we  must  pay  some 
attention  to  the  aims  and  ambitions  of  the  German 
Government  in  the  Far  East.  Germany  only  a  few 
years  ago  was  a  negligible  quantity  in  the  politics 
of  the  China  seas.  Indeed  there  were  only  three 
European  Powers  who  could  be  considered  to  have 
any  real  influence  upon  the  course  of  events  in 
China,  and  they  were  England,  France,  and  Russia. 
But  since  the  foreign  trade  of  Germany  has  begun 
to  expand  and  her  steamers  have  appeared  upon 
the  ocean,  she  has  taken  a  new  interest  in  the 
great  market  of  the  East,  and  has  determined  to 
have  a  voice  in  its  political  destiny.  Nothing  in 
recent  years,  except  the  granting  of  the  concession 
for  the  Manchurian  Railway  to  Russia,  has  had  such 
a  strong  effect  upon  Chinese  history  as  the  seizure 
of  the  Bay  of  Kiao-chau.  This  high-handed  bit  of 
land-grabbing  brought  Germany  into  the  arena  as  a 
militant  force  in  Chinese  politics,  it  marked  a  new 
stage  in  the  dismemberment  of  the  Chinese  Empire, 
and  it  was  one  at  least  of  the  causes  of  the  famous 
Boxer  rising  of  1900.  It  will  be  useful,  therefore,  to 
give  some  account  of  what  the  Germans  are  doing 


GERMAN  AMBITIONS 


219 


in  their  special  sphere  of  influence,  the  Province  of 
Shan-tung. 

On  a  barren,  treeless,  rocky  coast  at  the  eastern 
extremity  of  a  shallow,  useless  bay  the  Germans  are 
rapidly  building  their  Eastern  capital,  which  is  to 
be  not  only  a  naval  and  commercial  base  for  Northern 
China,  but  also  the  rallying -point  of  all  that  is 
German  in  the  Eastern  Hemisphere.  That  their 
enterprise  has  been  greeted  with  only  half- concealed 
laughter  on  the  part  of  the  old  China  hands  goes 
without  saying.  To  attempt  any  great  work  of 
construction  in  China  is  to  court  ridicule  in  the 
clubs  of  the  treaty  ports ;  but  to  make  the  attempt 
where  no  trade  has  previously  existed  to  justify  any 
outlay  at  all  is  regarded  in  the  East  as  nothing  short 
of  madness  or  deliberate  wickedness. 

Nevertheless,  two  interesting  experiments  of  this 
sort  are  at  present  being  made  in  China,  by  the 
Russians  at  Dalny  and  by  the  Germans  at  Tsing-tao. 
In  both  cases  great  deep-water  harbours  are  being 
built  at  enormous  cost  in  situations  by  no  means 
well  adapted  to  the  purpose ;  in  both  cases  the 
commerce  which  alone  would  justify  the  expense 
exists  only  in  the  future.  There  is  this  difference, 
that  while  Dalny  was  built  to  carry  out  and  to  finish 
a  railway  scheme,  the  Shan-tung  railway  is  being 
built  as  a  complement  and  feeder  of  Tsing-tao.  The 
two  enterprises  were  begun  about  the  same  time, 
and,  roughly  speaking,  they  have  reached  about  the 
same  state  of  development  to-day.  Dalny  is  expected 
to  cost  the  Russian  Government  70,000,000  roubles  > 
Tsing-tao  will  account  for  more  than  120,000,000 


220 


GERMAN  AMBITIONS 


marks.  So  the  race  is  well  contested  up  to  date, 
with  no  great  advantage  to  one  side  or  the  other. 
With  regard  to  both  very  various  opinions  have  been 
expressed,  for  the  most  part  by  people  who  have 
never  visited  either,  and  both  have  been  subjected 
to  contemptuous  criticism  by  the  more  old-fashioned 
of  the  Anglo-Chinese,  who  object  strongly  to  such 
unheard-of  methods,  and  predict  all  sorts  of  mis¬ 
fortune  as  a  proper  punishment  for  the  infringement 
of  Chinese  custom. 

The  time  has  almost  arrived,  however,  when  the 
future  of  these  enterprises  can  be  roughly  gauged, 
or  at  least  it  may  be  decided  whether  they  are 
doomed  to  failure  or  to  some  measure,  at  least,  of 
success.  I  have  already  endeavoured  to  show  that 
Dalny  must  become  an  important  seaport  almost 
from  the  moment  of  its  effective  opening  to  trade. 
That  Tsing-tao  will  be  equally  successful  it  would  be 
rash  to  prophesy.  It  is  handicapped  from  the  outset 
by  the  poverty  of  its  hinterland  (poverty  being  a 
relative  term,  and  applicable  only  as  compared 
with  the  richness  of  Manchuria).  But  success  can 
only  be  judged  according  to  the  scope  of  the  original 
plan,  and  it  is  necessary  to  point  out  first  what  the 
Germans  had  in  view  when  they  seized  the  Bay  of 
Kiao-chau. 

The  Germans  wanted,  in  the  first  place,  a  naval 
base  for  the  protection  of  their  commerce  and  the 
upholding  of  their  prestige  in  Chinese  waters.  Their 
choice  then  was  exceedingly  limited.  A  careful 
survey  of  the  coast  will  show  that  in  the  end  they 
must  have  been  reduced  to  choose  between  Wei-hai- 


GERMAN  AMBITIONS 


221 


wei  and  Kiao-chau.  It  is  said  that  Li-hung-chang, 
when  previously  confronted  with  the  same  choice, 
had  rejected  Kiao-chau  as  unfit  for  naval  purposes, 
and  it  might  be  argued  that  what  was  not  good 
enough  for  the  Chinese  navy  can  hardly  be  worthy 
of  Germany’^  fleet.  But  the  circumstances  were 
not  at  all  similar.  Port  Arthur  was  already  ear¬ 
marked  by  Russia,  and  Germany  had  no  desire,  it  is 
to  be  presumed,  to  establish  herself  in  close  proximity 
to  her  powerful  European  neighbour.  There  is  no 
great  distance  between  Wei-hai-wei  and  Kiao-chau, 
but  yet  sufficient  to  make  Kiao-chau  greatly  prefer¬ 
able  in  view  of  a  possible  torpedo  attack  from  Port 
Arthur.  As  far  as  expense  is  concerned,  while  Wei- 
hai-wei  in  its  natural  state  is  a  much  better  harbour 
than  any  part  of  Kiao-chau  Bay,  there  is  probably 
no  great  difference  in  the  amount  of  money  which 
must  be  spent  on  each  in  order  to  make  it  impreg¬ 
nable. 

From  a  strategic  point  of  view,  therefore,  Germany 
was  forced  to  take  Kiao-chau  Bay ;  and  so  it  must 
be  remembered  by  those  who  are  inclined  to  sneer 
at  Germany’s  new  colony  that,  granted  the  necessity 
of  having  a  naval  base  in  China  at  all,  Kiao-chau 
Bay  was  absolutely  the  only  spot  which  she  could 
select  for  the  purpose ;  and  if  she  has  to  spend 
^5, 000,000  on  making  a  harbour  and  erecting  forti¬ 
fications  she  is  only  doing  what  she  must  have  known 
to  be  necessary  before  she  seized  the  bay.  If,  besides 
fulfilling  her  aim  in  this  direction,  she  also  succeeds  in 
making  her  new  colony  a  trading  centre  in  itself  and 
a  commercial  base  for  North  China  she  will  have 


QQG) 


GERMAN  AMBITIONS 


added  a  measure  of  success  which  was  not  an  essential 
part  of  the  original  undertaking.  And  if,  further, 
she  uses  Kiao-chau  Bay  as  a  lever  for  the  political 
control  of  Shan-tung,  and  perhaps  part  of  Chih-li  as 
well,  then  it  may  fairly  be  argued  that  the  money 
expended  on  her  harbour  will  be  returned  to  her 
with  good  interest. 

Tsing-tao  is  situated  on  the  promontory  which 
forms  the  eastern  boundary  of  the  Bay  of  Kiao-chau, 
and  is  seventy-seven  kilometres  (about  forty -four 
miles)  by  rail  from  the  Chinese  city  of  Kiao-chau, 
which  lies  a  mile  or  two  inland  from  the  head  of  the 
long,  shallow  bay  which  the  Germans  have  “  leased” 
from  China.  Kiao-chau  itself  is  not  in  the  leased 
territory,  but  the  Germans  hold  the  entire  foreshore 
of  the  bay,  besides  all  territory  within  a  radius  of 
some  thirty  kilometres  from  Tsing-tao. 

When  you  land  at  Tsing-tao  you  are  confronted 
with  the  same  barren,  rugged  hills  which  give  every¬ 
where  to  the  coast  of  Shan-tung  an  unpleasing  and 
inhospitable  appearance.  Tsing-tao  is  on  the  ex¬ 
tremity  of  the  promontory,  and  faces  out  to  sea, 
while  the  business  quarter  of  the  town  (called  Ta-pu- 
tao)  lies  over  a  slight  rise  and  faces  inwards  towards 
the  bay  where  the  new  harbour  works  are.  At  first 
a  small  harbour  with  a  breakwater  was  constructed 
for  coasting-steamers,  but  as  it  was  discovered  (after 
enormous  sums  had  been  spent  on  a  mole)  that  the 
basin  was  full  of  rocks  and  the  entrance  too  narrow 
for  safety,  the  coasting-steamers  preferred  to  lie 
outside  opposite  to  Tsing-tao  itself,  where  they 
discharged  their  passengers  and  cargo  by  sampan 


GERMAN  AMBITIONS 


223 


and  lighter.  They  were  thus  exposed  to  the  full 
fury  of  a  gale  from  the  south-east,  which  they  could 
only  escape  by  running  across  to  an  inlet  on  the 
south  side  of  the  bay,  just  as  ships  escape  a  northerly 
gale  at  Chi-fu  by  running  under  the  Bluff.  This 
unsatisfactory  state  of  affairs  was  only,  of  course, 
temporary,  as  the  great  harbour  inside  will  give 
ample  accommodation  for  ships  of  all  sizes  when  it 
is  finished. 

The  town  of  Tsing-tao,  which  faces  the  incoming 
steamers,  is  composed  of  a  number  of  large  new 
buildings,  which  include  two  fine  hotels  and  a 
number  of  business  houses  and  private  dwellings. 
Here  there  are  no  retail  shops  and  no  Chinese 
dwellings  of  any  sort  with  the  exception  of  the 
aboriginal  Chinese  village,  which  is  being  rapidly 
removed.  The  sea  front  before  the  hotels  were  not 
yet  finished  when  I  visited  the  port,  and  many  of 
the  buildings  had  not  shed  their  scaffolding ;  never¬ 
theless,  the  visitor  who  comes  expecting  to  find  an 
ordinary  foreign  settlement  on  the  scale  of  the  newer 
treaty  ports  will  be  agreeably  surprised,  and  possibly, 
if  he  is  a  business  man,  astounded.  The  Prince 
Heinrich  Hotel  is,  with  the  exception  of  the  Astor 
House  in  Shanghai,  by  far  the  best  hotel  in  the 
whole  of  the  East,  including  Japan  ;  and  the  busi¬ 
ness  houses  and  public  buildings  are  constructed  on 
such  a  solid  and  extensive  scale  as  you  will  not  find 
in  Shanghai,  or  even  perhaps  Hong  Kong. 

In  summer  or  winter,  when  the  sun  shines,  as  it 
nearly  always  does  in  Shan-tung,  the  scenery,  though 
bare,  is  not  so  lacking  in  charm  as  the  first  view  from 


224 


GERMAN  AMBITIONS 


the  sea  would  indicate.  In  front  of  the  hotel  the 
entrance  of  the  bay  widens  out  to  the  sea,  its  blue 
expanse  dotted  with  a  few  rocky  islands  and  innu¬ 
merable  brown  junks,  and  brightened  occasionally 
by  the  long  white  hull  of  battleship  or  cruiser. 
Exactly  opposite  to  the  hotel  windows  a  long  hill 
far  across  the  bay  rises  to  a  thousand  peaks,  the 
highest  of  which  stands  sixteen  hundred  feet  above 
the  blue  waters  of  the  bay.  Behind  the  town  low 
hills  shelter  Tsing-tao  in  winter  from  the  north 
winds,  and,  thanks  to  German  rule,  they  are  already 
assuming  a  garment  of  green  pine.  Farther  back 
the  hills  become  mountains,  attaining  a  height  of 
three  thousand  feet,  with  such  jagged,  fantastic 
crests  as  to  delight  the  eye  in  spite  of  their  barren¬ 
ness.  East  of  Tsing-tao  proper,  in  another  little 
cove  of  the  sea,  the  Governor  has  his  residence,  and 
the  beach  is  excellent  for  bathing,  wdiile  enormous 
barracks  and  an  incipient  racecourse,  with  tennis  and 
polo  grounds,  betoken  the  fashionable  quarter  of  the 
future. 

To  the  west  of  Tsing-tao,  facing  inwards  to  the 
bay,  lies  the  real  wonder  of  the  place  in  the  shape  of 
a  brand-new  commercial  quarter,  which  is  actually 
built  up  and  could  now,  if  necessary,  accommodate 
half  the  retail  business  of  Shanghai.  This  is 
Ta-pu-tao,  where  the  Germans  graciously  allow  the 
Chinese  to  reside  and  do  business.  Here,  it  would 
seem,  is  a  triumphant  answer  to  those  who  declare 
that  the  Chinese  merchants  will  never  go  to  Dalny 
or  Tsing-tao  ;  for  here,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  are 
in  the  new  German  town,  buying  up  land  as  fast  as 


CHINESE  JUNKS  ON  THE  YALU 


GERMAN  AMBITIONS 


225 


they  can  get  it,  and  building  night  and  day  in 
feverish  haste.  For  some  reason  or  other  the 
Chinese  believe  in  Tsing-tao,  and  are  backing  their 
belief  in  a  practical  way.  About  two  miles  to  the 
north,  in  a  small  plain  which  lies  between  the  hills 
and  the  higher  mountain  range,  there  is  a  model 
Chinese  village,  with  wide  streets,  neatly  built 
houses,  and  a  big  market-place.  This  is  intended 
to  accommodate  all  the  coolies  who  are  at  work  on 
the  railway  and  the  harbour,  and  also  the  smaller 
Chinese  shopkeepers.  The  scheme  has  caused  some 
amusement  to  visitors  and  residents  alike  as  being 
typically  German ;  but  it  seems  on  the  whole  to  be 
fairly  successful.  It  removes  the  coolie  element  to  a 
pleasant  distance,  it  enforces  on  them  a  sanitary 
mode  of  life,  and  the  Government  manages  to  exact 
a  rent  of  ^2  a  month  for  each  house.  The  Chinese 
love  to  herd  together  in  overcrowded  hovels,  but 
when  forced  to  live  decently,  they  appear  to  accept 
the  inevitable  with  equanimity,  and  one  cannot  help 
wishing  that  the  German  system  might  be  extended 
to  all  the  other  parts  of  China  which  are  under 
foreign  influence. 

The  new  harbour  lies  well  inside  the  bay  at  the 
foot  of  Ta-pu-tao,  and  was,  at  the  time  of  my  visit,  in 
an  embryo  state.  A  large  basin  was  being  formed  by 
two  great  moles,  one  being  semicircular  and  over 
two  miles  in  length  and  the  other  much  shorter  and 
straight.  The  greater  mole  was  well  advanced,  but 
as  the  basin  enclosed  by  the  two  is  extremely  shallow, 
with  rocks  here  and  there  under  the  surface,  it  was 
reckoned  that  four  years  more  would  be  required 


226 


GERMAN  AMBITIONS 


before  all  the  necessary  dredging  and  filling  in  could 
be  finished  and  the  various  piers  built.  The  harbour, 
when  completed,  is  to  accommodate  both  merchant 
ships  and  men- of- war,  and  to  afford  docking  facilities 
for  both.  Before  there  was  really  no  safe  harbourage 
at  all,  because  the  little  harbour  originally  constructed 
nearer  the  spit  of  the  promontory  has  proved  to  be, 
as  already  stated,  quite  useless  for  any  purpose  except 
possibly  to  take  in  large  junks — an  object  which  was 
never  in  view.  Consequently,  the  shipping  com¬ 
panies  brought  pressure  to  bear  on  the  Government, 
and  one  pier  in  the  new  harbour  fifteen  hundred 
metres  (seven  furlongs)  long  was  ready  for  use  in 
1902. 

It  remains  to  speak  of  the  roads  and  railway.  The 
roads,  which  are  being  constructed  on  a  lavish  scale 
about  all  the  environments  of  Tsing-tao,  would  make 
even  a  British  engineer  envious.  They  are,  however, 
mainly  of  local  importance.  The  railway  is  destined 
to  be  the  prime  factor  in  the  development  and  future 
prosperity  of  the  port.  When  I  travelled  over  it  in 
1901  it  was  only  in  working  order  as  far  as  the  city 
of  Kiao-chau  (seventy-seven  kilometres),  but  prepara¬ 
tions  were  already  being  made  for  the  festivities  in 
connection  with  the  opening  of  traffic  as  far  as  Kau-mi, 
the  next  district  town  to  Kiao-chau,  one  hundred 
and  three  kilometres  from  Tsing-tao.  The  rails  were 
laid  to  Wei-hsien,  which  is  one  hundred  and  fifty 
kilometres  from  Tsing-tao,  last  year,  and  traffic  began 
to  assume  a  real  importance.  Between  Tsing-tao 
and  Kiao-chau  a  certain  amount  of  cutting  has  been 
necessary,  but  beyond  Kiao-chau  there  are  practically 


GERMAN  AMBITIONS 


227 

no  engineering  difficulties  until  the  capital  of  the 
province  is  reached. 

Considering  that  work  was  begun  on  the  road  at 
the  end  of  the  year  1899,  and  was  partially  inter¬ 
rupted  during  the  troubles  of  1900,  no  fault  can  be 
found  with  the  progress  made.  The  work  is  solid 
and  well  constructed,  the  gauge  being  standard 
(4ft.  8Jft.),  the  rails  (Krupp)  weighing  about  7olb. 
to  the  yard,  and  the  sleepers  being  of  iron.  The 
embankments  and  ballasting  leave  nothing  to  be 
desired.  While  the  number  of  kilometres  actually 
in  working  order  looks  very  small  in  comparison  with 
the  two  thousand  kilometres  laid  in  Manchuria  in 
five  years,  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  Shan¬ 
tung  Railway  is  being  built  by  a  private  company 
and  not  by  a  Government,  as  is  the  case  with  the 
Manchurian  Railway,  and  that  in  the  case  of  Shan¬ 
tung  there  is  no  urgent  strategic  necessity  for  the 
line,  and  so  it  is  possible  to  build  slowly  and  solidly, 
only  opening  such  portions  of  the  line  as  are  really  fit 
for  traffic — a  rule  which  of  necessity  could  not  be 
kept  in  Manchuria. 

Commercially  speaking,  the  opening  of  the  line 
to  Kiao-chau  proved  nothing.  The  produce  of  the 
country  (chiefly  beans)  continued  to  be  shipped  in 
junks  from  the  port  of  Kiao-chau  (which  is  called 
Ta-pu-tao,  but  must  not  be  confused  with  the  com¬ 
mercial  portion  of  Tsing-tao),  and  was  exported  chiefly 
to  Ning-po  and  Swa-tau  in  sea-going  junks  owned  by 
the  merchants  who  buy  the  produce.  It  could  hardly 
be  expected  that  the  Germans  could  capture  this 
small  trade,  because  to  do  so  they  would  have  to 


228 


GERMAN  AMBITIONS 


make  steamer  rates  plus  railway  rates  between  Tsing- 
tao  and  Kiao-chau  equal  to  junk  rates  for  the  whole 
distance.  In  the  same  way  Chinese  passengers  would 
not  use  the  railway  to  Kiao-chau,  which  at  present 
costs  them  $1.20,  when  they  can  go  by  junk  for  200 
cash  or  20c. 

At  first  the  railway  rates  were  far  too  high,  the 
Germans  appearing  to  have  extravagant  ideas  of  what 
the  Chinese  can  be  made  to  pay,  and  being  in  any 
case  disinclined  to  encourage  traffic  until  they  had 
sufficient  rolling-stock  for  the  purpose.  But  at  best 
the  Kiao-chau  section  of  the  railway  can  never  pay 
by  itself ;  it  is  only  when  the  railway  begins  to  tap 
the  interior  that  its  prospects  can  be  thoroughly 
gauged.  Now  that  Wei-hsien  is  open,  goods  traffic 
should  begin  to  increase,  for  it  is  really  the  commer¬ 
cial  centre  of  Eastern  Shan-tung.  The  Wei-hsien 
district,  which  produces  beans  and  straw-braid  and 
pongee  silk,  the  three  specialities  of  Shan-tung,  has 
hitherto  found  a  means  of  exit  for  its  trade  onlv 

1/ 

through  Chi-fu.  It  requires  no  arguments  to  show 
that  it  will  be  more  profitable  to  send  goods  by  rail 
to  Tsing-tao  than  by  wheelbarrow,  or  cart,  or  coolie 
a  similar  distance  over  a  difficult  road  to  Chi-fu.  In 
other  words,  Tsing-tao  will  undoubtedly  capture  the 
greater  part  of  the  Chi-fu  trade,  both  export  and 
import. 

There  are  many  people  in  the  East  who  will  tell 
you  that  you  cannot  change  a  Chinaman’s  habits, 
and  that  if  he  is  in  the  habit  of  taking  his  goods 
to  Chi-fu  he  will  continue  to  do  so  whatever  it  may 
cost  him.  But  it  is  only  the  fossilised  treaty  port 


GERMAN  AMBITIONS 


229 

merchant  who  really  believes  such  twaddle  as  this ; 
and  even  he,  if  he  consulted  his  memory,  would  have 
to  admit  that  the  Chinese  trader  has  always  been 
willing  in  the  past  to  change  his  route  whenever  he 
found  it  paid. 

It  is  a  moral  certainty,  therefore,  that  Tsing-tao 
will,  to  a  large  extent,  absorb  the  export  and  import 
trade  of  Shan-tung,  both  capturing  the  old  trade  and 
creating  by  the  railway  new  centres  of  activity.  The 
railway  will  also  tap  the  coal  mines  near  Wei-hsien, 
which  are  said  to  be  of  considerable  value,  even  if 
the  coal  is  not,  according  to  the  usual  formula, 
“equal  to  the  best  Cardiff.”  Finally,  it  must  be 
remembered  that  Tsing-tao  as  a  deep-water  harbour 
will  be  a  useful  commercial  base  and  distributing 
centre  for  all  German  trade  in  the  north  of  China, 
and  Manchuria  and  Korea,  thus  taking  the  place,  as 
far  as  Germany  is  concerned,  of  Hong  Kong.  This  is 
a  minor  consideration,  of  course,  as  long  as  German 
goods  are  carried  to  a  large  extent  in  British  vessels, 
but  with  the  increase  of  German  steamers  there  will 
be  a  similar  increase  in  the  importance  of  Tsing-tao 
from  this  point  of  view. 

The  main  conclusion,  therefore,  is  that,  while  the 
new  German  port  cannot  expect  to  rival  an  em¬ 
porium  like  Shanghai,  nor  even  its  Manchurian 
counterpart,  Dalny,  since  Dalny  is  at  the  end  of  an 
infinitely  greater  railway  system,  yet  it  is  destined 
to  extract  what  commercial  profit  there  is  out  of  the 
province  of  Shan-tung,  and  considering  the  thrifty 
nature  of  the  people  and  the  mineral  prospects  of  the 
country,  that  profit  is  not  unlikely  to  be  considerable. 


230 


GERMAN  AMBITIONS 


That  the  capital  spent  on  Tsing-tao  can  ever  be 
exactly  repaid  in  hard  cash  no  one  can  imagine, 
but  it  would  be  wise  at  the  same  time  to  inquire 
whether  Russia  will  ever  get  an  exact  commercial 
return  for  her  expenditure  at  Port  Arthur.  Primarily 
Tsing-tao  is  a  naval  base,  and  the  money,  or  a  large 
part  of  it,  had  to  be  spent  regardless  of  direct  com¬ 
mercial  considerations. 

From  a  political  point  of  view  Tsing-tao  is  not 
without  its  advantages.  It  has  given  rise  to  the 
Shan-tung  Railway  Company,  which  in  its  turn 
necessitates  a  military  guard.  When  I  was  at  Kiao- 
chau  a  guard  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  mounted 
men  was  on  its  way  to  Kau-mi,  and  a  similar  force 
were  to  accompany  the  line  to  Wei-hsien  and  beyond, 
so  that  gradually  there  is  formed  a  line  of  German 
troops  through  Shan-tung  just  as  there  are  Cossacks 
in  Manchuria.  Thus  the  old  railway  game  is  played 
once  more.  It  is  a  paying  game,  because  you  need 
never  suffer  actual  defeat.  At  any  moment,  by 
strengthening  your  guards,  you  can  usurp  supreme 
authority  in  the  province.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
circumstances  are  too  strong  for  you,  it  is  always 
easy  to  withdraw  the  guard  without  loss  of  “  face  ” 
and  without  bringing  on  a  conflict.  It  commits  you 
to  nothing,  but  makes  everything  possible. 

At  present  the  Germans  are  going  quietly  on  with 
their  work.  There  are  only  about  two  thousand  five 
hundred  German  soldiers  in  the  whole  province, 
including  Tsing-tao ;  and  what,  after  all,  is  a  little 
force  of  a  few  hundred  mounted  men,  even  if  it  is 
outside  German  territory?  Nevertheless,  there  is 


GERMAN  AMBITIONS 


231 


an  enormous  amount  of  new  barrack  space  in  Tsing- 
tao,  and  new  regiments  are  coming  from  home.  Are 
they  all  for  the  purpose  of  helping  a  private  com¬ 
pany  to  build  a  railway  ?  Perhaps  so,  and  perhaps 
not.  Probably  Germany  or  the  German  Emperor 
has  not  quite  decided  ;  but  it  is  always  well  to  be 
prepared.  Some  day  undoubtedly,  and  that,  too, 
before  long,  Shan-tung  will  be  a  German  province, 
just  as  Manchuria  is  Russian,  and  if  any  Power 
wishes  to  object,  Germany  will  say  with  reason  that 
objections  are  obsolete  ;  and  meanwhile  our  Under 
Secretaries  will  continue  to  say  that  there  is  no 
reason  whatever  to  believe  that  Germany  has  any 
designs  on  Shan-tung. 

Other  foreign  Powers  should  not  be  lulled  to  sleep 
by  the  apparent  scuttle  of  Germany  from  China.  In 
reality  she  is  going  along  quietly  with  her  work, 
more  determinedly  perhaps  than  ever.  Not  only  is 
Tsing-tao  being  developed  commercially,  but  its 
defences  are  now  being  taken  in  hand,  and  by  the 
time  Shan-tung  is  ready  to  be  absorbed  the  forts  at 
Tsing-tao  will  be  completed.  On  the  whole,  the 
neglected  spot  on  the  Shan-tung  coast  which  British 
officials,  both  civil  and  military,  dismiss  at  present 
with  something  like  contempt,  is  likely  to  play  a 
prominent  part  in  Chinese  history  in  the  next  ten 
years.  I  have  no  wish  to  exaggerate  its  importance. 
The  German  Government  is  by  no  means  infallible. 
Great  mistakes  have  been  made  at  Tsing-tao,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  small  harbour,  and  red  tape  is  still 
in  the  ascendant.  I  have  even  heard  a  prominent 
German  merchant  of  Tien-tsin  vow  that  he  would 


232 


GERMAN  AMBITIONS 


never  settle  in  a  purely  German  port  like  Tsing-tao 
if  he  could  help  it.  But  the  testimony  of  the 
Chinese  merchants  is  in  such  cases  of  the  first 
importance,  and  beyond  a  doubt  the  Chinese  believe 
in  Tsing-tao. 


CHAPTER  XVI 


RAILWAYS  AND  SPHERES  OF  INFLUENCE 

The  history  of  our  dealings  with  China  may  he 
divided  into  two  periods  of  unequal  length.  In  the 
first  period  we  devoted  our  attention  to  the  “  open 
door”  and  the  integrity  of  the  Chinese  Empire; 
in  the  second  we  attempted  to  solve  the  international 
difficulty  by  cutting  China  up  into  Spheres  of  Influ- 
ence.  The  second  period  began  with  the  Anglo- 
Russian  Agreement  of  1899,  whereby  Manchuria  was 
recognised  as  the  Russian  sphere  and  the  Yangtze 
Valley  as.  the  British  sphere.  During  the  long- 
negotiations  which  led  up  to  the  final  signing  of  the 
agreement  the  only  two  Powers  who  were  regarded 
as  being  really  interested  in  the  development  of  China 
were  Great  Britain  and  Russia.  But  it  was  soon 
recognised  that,  whatever  might  be  the  predominance 
of  these  two  countries  in  the  political  affairs  of  the  Far 
East,  there  were  at  least  two  others  who  would  insist 
in  having  no  uncertain  voice  in  determining  the 
destiny  of  China,  and  they  were  Germany  and  Japan. 
The  natural  corollary  of  this  discovery  was  an  agree¬ 
ment  with  Germany  whereby  Shan-tung  was  marked 
off  as  the  special  sphere  of  German  aspirations,  while 
Japan  was  told  that  she  could  push  her  influence  in 
the  seaboard  provinces  of  Chekiang  and  Fukien, 


234  RAILWAYS  AND  SPHERES  OF  INFLUENCE 

which,  she  was  reminded,  were  opposite  to  her  island 
of  Formosa,  and,  therefore,  of  great  value  to  her. 

The  whole  scheme  of  the  Spheres  of  Influence  has 
been  so  completely  exploded,  as  far  as  our  share  in  it 
is  concerned,  that  it  would  hardly  be  necessary  at 
this  time  to  dwell  upon  the  lamentable  failure  of  our 
policy  if  it  were  not  for  the  fact  that  while  we  have 
more  or  less  reverted  to  the  older  cry  of  the  “  open 
door,”  other  Powers  have  in  the  meantime  reaped  the 
profit  of  our  temporary  fit  of  mental  aberration  and 
have  made  their  Spheres  of  Influence  something  more 
than  empty  names.  Nor  can  we  appreciate  the 
present  situation  in  the  Far  East,  or  formulate  a  new 
policy  of  any  force  or  value,  unless  we  clearly  under¬ 
stand  how  deeply  we  blundered  in  past  years  and 
how  changed  the  conditions  have  become  in  the 
short  period  which  has  elapsed  since  Japan  was 
forced  to  evacuate  the  Liao-tung  peninsula. 

It  is  only  fair  to  say  that  the  British  Government 
could  hardly  have  contemplated  the  complete  reversal 
of  its  policy  which  actually  took  place  in  1899,  when 
it  entered  upon  negotiations  affecting  a  comparatively 
unimportant  railway  scheme  in  Southern  Manchuria. 
But  the  fact  that  neither  Lord  Salisbury  nor  Mr. 
Balfour  could  foresee  the  result  of  their  own  deliberate 
actions  in  the  year  1 899  is  hardly  a  point  in  their 
favour  as  statesmen  in  charge  of  the  welfare  of  their 
country.  They  exhibited  throughout  the  negotia¬ 
tions  that  gay  insouciance  and  complete  ignorance  of 
the  real  issues  at  stake  which  has  so  often  character¬ 
ised  the  performances  of  our  Foreign  Office  in  dealing 
with  Asiatic  questions.  That  the  Foreign  Office  is 


RAILWAYS  AND  SPHERES  OF  INFLUENCE  235 


quite  incorrigible  in  this  respect  was  made  sufficiently 
clear  by  the  amazing  carelessness  displayed  in  the 
recent  handling  of  the  Bagdad  Railway  controversy, 
and  that  it  will  remain  incorrigible  until  a  properly 
equipped  Asiatic  Department  is  instituted  is  apparent 
to  every  one  who  has  any  intimate  knowledge  of 
Asiatic  politics.  That  is  all  the  more  reason  for 
reviewing  our  recent  policy  in  China,  in  order  that 
the  general  reader  may  have  a  definite  idea  of  the 
direction  in  which  we  have  been  tending.  It  is  easy 
enough,  and,  therefore,  of  little  value,  to  abuse  the 
Foreign  Office  in  general  terms  for  its  want  of 
ordinary  foresight.  It  is  of  considerable  value  to 
show  wherein  our  mistakes  consisted  and  how  they 
may  in  part  be  remedied. 

The  negotiations  which  ended  in  the  Anglo- 
Russian  Agreement  of  1899  had  comparatively  small 
beginnings  in  a  dispute  which  arose  between  this 
country  and  Russia  over  the  financing  of  the  Shan- 
hai-kwan  New-chwang  Railway.  The  British  bond¬ 
holders  who  had  advanced  the  money  for  the  con¬ 
struction  of  the  northern  railway  which  ran  from 
Peking  to  Shan  ghai-k wan  had  arrived  at  an  agree¬ 
ment  with  the  Chinese  Government  whereby  they 
were  to  finance  the  extension  of  that  railway  as  far 
as  New-chwang  and  were  to  take  a  mortgage  on  the 
whole  railway  as  a  security  for  their  bonds.  As  soon 
as  this  arrangement  was  made  public,  the  Russian 
Minister  at  Peking  intervened  and  objected  to  the 
mortgaging  of  any  railway  north  of  the  Great  Wall  to 
foreign  bondholders.  By  way  of  explanation  he 
declared  that  the  Chinese  Government  was  bound  by 


236  RAILWAYS  AND  SPHERES  OF  INFLUENCE 


a  previous  agreement  with  Russia  to  enter  into  no 
such  undertaking  as  far  as  Manchuria  was  concerned. 
The  Hong  Kong  and  Shanghai  Bank  and  Messrs. 
Jardine  and  Mathieson,  as  representing  the  British 
Corporation,  were  then  compelled  to  appeal  to  their 
own  Government  to  help  them  to  enforce  their  agree¬ 
ment. 

On  the  face  of  it  the  Russian  Government  had  not 
a  leg  to  stand  upon,  unless,  indeed,  they  were 
prepared  to  produce  their  previous  agreement  with 
China.  They  might  have  a  thousand  secret  under¬ 
standings  with  China,  but  not  one  of  them  could 
invalidate  any  understanding  that  the  Chinese 
Government  might  come  to  with  a  British  corpora¬ 
tion.  To  admit  such  a  principle  would  be  to  place 
ourselves  at  a  great  disadvantage  in  all  future 
dealings  with  a  country  like  China ;  for  it  would 
always  be  open  to  Russia  to  veto  any  scheme  of  ours 
which  she  did  not  particularly  approve  of  by  pleading 
a  previous  secret  engagement.  Unfortunately,  our 
Government  has  been  exceedingly  timid  in  meeting 
this  transparent  manipulation  of  the  cards.  When 
Russia  made  a  similar  secret  agreement  with  Persia 
regarding  the  right  to  build  railways,  our  Govern¬ 
ment  actually  went  so  far  as  to  consider  themselves 
bound  by  that  agreement,  of  which  they  had  no 
official  cognisance  whatever.  In  the  case  of  the 
New-chwang  railway,  our  obvious  course  was  either 
to  ignore  the  Russian  protest  altogether  or  to  demand 
that  the  Russo-Chinese  agreement  should  be  pro¬ 
duced  in  its  entirety,  so  that  we  should  know  exactly 
where  we  stood  for  the  future.  Instead  of  that,  we 


HALLWAYS  AND  SPHERES  OF  INFLUENCE  237 


rather  weakly  admitted  the  right  of  Russia  to 
interfere  and  began  a  series  of  long  negotiations, 
during  the  course  of  which  Mr.  Balfour  acted  at 
times  for  Lord  Salisbury,  and  displayed  an  equal 
want  of  appreciation  of  the  real  issues  at  stake. 

It  must  be  said  for  the  Foreign  Office  that  it  was 
not  ashamed  of  its  handling  of  the  matter,  for  it 
printed  a  minute  account  of  the  negotiations  in 
Blue-book  form,  which  exhibited  such  an  appalling 
ignorance  of  Chinese  geography  on  the  part  of  our 
representatives  that  nothing  in  the  conclusions  they 
came  to  need  be  wondered  at.  Here  is  an  example : 
After  the  negotiations  had  been  going  on  for  the 
best  part  of  a  year,  during  all  of  which  time  the 
Foreign  Office  and  our  ambassador  had  been  fur¬ 
nished  with  copies  of  the  prospectus  of  the  British 
Corporation,  Count  Lamsdorff  suddenly  discovered 
that  a  branch  railway  to  Sing-ming-ting  was  in¬ 
cluded  in  the  agreement,  and  declared  that  the 
discovery  altered  the  whole  case.  Sir  Charles  Scott 
apparently  had  not  even  read  the  prospectus,  and 
wired  anxiously  to  the  Foreign  Office  to  ask  where 
Sing-ming-ting  was — all  Chinese  names  having  about 
the  same  value  to  him.  The  Foreign  Office  was 
equally  at  a  loss,  and  advised  the  ambassador  to  ask 
Count  Lamsdorff ;  but  finally,  having  sent  round  to 
the  nearest  bookseller  to  buy  a  map  of  China,  was  able 
to  advise  the  ambassador  that  Sing-ming-ting  would 
be  found  in  a  map  which  appeared  in  a  recently 
published  book  by  Mr.  Archibald  Colquhoun.  When 
we  consider  that  both  the  Foreign  Office  and  the 
ambassador  had  been  negotiating  for  nearly  a  year 


238  RAILWAYS  AND  SPHERES  OF  INFLUENCE 


about  a  railway  prospectus  which  included  a  branch 
to  Sing-ming-ting,  and  when  it  is  further  remembered 
that  Sing-ming-ting  is  as  important  a  centre  in 
Manchuria  as  Birmingham  is  in  England,  and  that 
it  is  marked  in  large  letters  on  every  respectable 
map  of  China,  one  is  divided  between  astonishment 
at  the  extraordinary  ignorance  of  the  people  who 
are  conducting  the  nation’s  affairs  and  admiration  of 
the  honesty  which  led  the  department  to  blazon  this 
ignorance  in  the  pages  of  a  Blue-book.  Fortunately 
for  the  Foreign  Office,  we  have  a  healthy  British 
public  that  refuses  to  read  Blue-books. 

The  negotiations  at  length  came  to  an  end,  and 
had  result  in  an  Anglo-Russian  agreement  which 
went  far  beyond  the  field  of  the  New-chwang 
railway.  We  bound  ourselves  by  it  not  to  give 
Government  support  to  any  British  scheme  for 
railway  or  mineral  exploitation  in  Manchuria,  while 
Russia  bound  herself  to  a  similar  abstention  in 
regard  to  the  Yangtze  Valley.  The  agreement  was 
received  with  warm  acclamation  by  the  British 
public,  who  had  been  taught  to  regard  it  as  a  long 
step  towards  the  annexation  of  the  entire  Yangtze 
Basin,  or  about  half  the  Chinese  kingdom.  The 
spheres  of  influence  policy  had  been  inaugurated. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  it  was  our  Foreign 
Office,  and  not  the  Russian  Government,  which  had 
suggested  the  broadening  of  the  basis  of  the  negotia¬ 
tions.  We  might  have  dealt  fairly  and  squarely  with 
the  question  at  issue  which  had  only  reference  to  the 
right  of  a  British  Corporation  to  hold  a  mortgage 
upon  a  railway  in  Manchuria.  The  Russian  Govern- 


RAILWAYS  AND  SPHERES  OF  INFLUENCE  239 


ment  raised  an  objection  on  the  ground  that  Russia 
held  prior  rights  over  the  whole  of  Manchuria.  We 
had  certainly  no  cognisance  of  these  prior  rights, 
and  had  no  reason  to  admit  them.  But,  instead  of 
adopting  the  straightforward  course  of  refusing  to 
admit  these  rights,  which  were  obviously  at  variance 
with  any  idea  of  the  independence  and  integrity  of 
China,  a  bright  notion  suggested  itself  to  our  Govern¬ 
ment?  Why  not  bargain  with  Russia?  Let  her 
keep  all  the  rights  she  claimed  in  that  barbarous 
and  inhospitable  region  known  as  Manchuria,  if  she 
would  in  return  hand  over  to  us  the  enormous 
resources  of  the  great  Yangtze  Basin.  One  can 
picture  to  oneself  the  innocent  delight  of  our  artless 
Prime  Minister  in  so  hoodwinking  the  wily  Muscovite. 
It  is  also  quite  easy  to  understand  the  applause  of 
the  British  public.  Very  few  people  have  more 
than  the  vaguest  ideas  about  the  Far  East,  and 
every  one  was  prepared  to  be  pleased  when  a  new 
kingdom  much  greater  and  richer,  and  more  populous 
than  the  Nile  Valley,  was  added  to  the  probationary 
portion  of  the  British  Empire.  Still  it  must  have 
occurred  to  a  few  level-headed  onlookers  that  there 
were  more  parties  than  one  to  be  consulted  in  the 
matter.  No  one,  of  course,  expected  any  notice  to 
be  taken  of  China’s  wishes.  But  Germany,  Japan, 
and  America  had  surely  to  be  reckoned  with.  Our 
Foreign  Office  was  not  in  the  least  dismayed. 
Germany  had  chosen  Shan-tung,  a  somewhat  barren 
province,  and  she  was  welcome  to  it.  Japan  was 
bound  to  respect  our  policy  in  any  case,  but  there 
was  no  reason  why  she  should  not  satisfy  her 


240  RAILWAYS  AND  SPHERES  OF  INFLUENCE 


ambitions  by  resuscitating  the  once  prosperous  but 
now  waning  fortunes  of  Amoy  and  Foochow.  As 
for  America,  she  was  not  considered  to  be  in  the 
land-grabbing  business,  and  seeing  how  little  she  did 
to  assert  herself  in  the  Far  East  she  ought  to  be  very 
well  content  to  reap  what  benefit  she  could  out  of 
our  ascendency  in  Central  China. 

All  this  took  place  before  the  South  African  War, 
when  we  were  fairly  confident  of  our  own  power,  and 
we  had  no  idea  that  our  pride  was  going  to  have  so 
sudden  a  fall.  But  is  it  conceivable  that  any  British 
statesman  could  have  believed  that  the  rival  Powers 
would  ever  have  consented  to  such  a  parcelling  out 
of  Chinese  territory  as  was  implied  by  the  Anglo- 
Russian  and  Anglo- German  agreements  ?  We  had 
become  so  accustomed  to  the  process  of  absorbing 
the  richest  parts  of  the  earth  that  it  may  not  have 
occurred  to  us  how  extremely  unequal  was  the 
division  of  the  spoils  in  China ;  but  we  may  be  quite 
sure  that  our  opponents  were  fully  alive  to  the 
situation.  And  it  is  certain  that  Russia,  at  least, 
had  no  intention  of  prejudicing  her  rights  in  the  rest 
of  China  by  signing  the  agreement  of  1899.  She 
had  everything  to  gain  and  nothing  to  lose  by  that 
agreement,  for  it  fully  recognised  her  special  privileges 
in  Manchuria,  which  she  was  prepared  to  maintain  if 
need  be  by  force,  while  the  privileges  which  it  con¬ 
ferred  on  us,  if  they  had  any  real  meaning,  would 
certainly  be  contested  by  the  whole  world.  Germany 
was  in  rather  a  similar  position.  Her  appropriation  of 
Shan-tung,  though  it  was  opposed  to  the  “open  door” 
theory,  was  not  likely  to  create  a  great  amount  of 


RAILWAYS  AND  SPHERES  OF  INFLUENCE  241 


ill-feeling,  owing  to  the  comparative  insignificance  of 
her  prize.  She  therefore  stood  to  gain  Shan-tung  and 
to  lose  none  of  her  rights  on  the  Yangtze.  Besides, 
it  must  be  remembered  that  Russia  and  Germany 
have  always  adopted  a  colonial  policy  very  different 
from  ours.  It  was  natural  for  them  to  look  for 
preferential  rights  in  their  respective  spheres  which 
we  should  never  think  of  claiming.  That  is  a  point 
which  our  statesmen  should  surely  have  kept  before 
their  eyes.  Unless  we  were  really  going  to  annex 
the  Yangtze  Valley,  we  could  gain  nothing  at  all  by 
calling  it  our  Sphere  of  Influence.  We  had  exactly 
the  same  rights  before  it  was  so  called  as  we  had 
afterwards. 

We  have,  in  fact,  no  exclusive  rights  of  any  sort  in 
Central  China.  The  only  railway  built  in  the  Yangtze 
Valley  is  a  Belgian  line  constructed  largely  with 
French  capital  and  financed  by  the  Russo- Chinese 
Bank.  At  Hankow,  the  mart  of  the  river  basin, 
there  have  only  lately  been  created  German,  Russian 
and  Japanese  concessions.  German  and  Japanese 
merchant  steamers  compete  with  ours  on  the  river 
and  a  Russian  gunboat  is  as  free  to  go  to  I-chang  as 
a  British  man-of-war.  Even  above  the  gorges  the 
French  flag  has  lately  been  seen  on  the  little  flat¬ 
iron  gunboat  called  the  Olry .  All  this  is  as  it 
should  be,  no  doubt.  But  wherein  consists  the 
British  Sphere  of  Influence  ?  Except  that  we  em¬ 
ploy  more  gunboats  than  any  other  Power  on  the 
river,  and,  therefore,  incur  a  greater  expense,  which 
conduces  to  the  safety  of  all  foreigners,  we  have  no 
single  advantage  which  is  not  possessed  equally  by 

Q 


242  RAILWAYS  AND  SPHERES  OF  INFLUENCE 


the  other  great  Powers.  On  the  other  hand,  when 
we  turn  to  the  Russian  and  German  Spheres  of 
Influence  we  see  a  great  difference.  Manchuria  is 
now  under  the  control  of  a  Russian  viceroy,  and  to 
all  intents  and  purposes  Russian  territory.  It  will 
be  impossible  in  the  future  for  any  one,  without  the 
consent  of  the  Russian  Government,  to  take  any  part 
in  the  exploitation  of  the  immense  mineral  resources 
of  the  country  or  to  build  railways  or  to  develop  the 
three  eastern  provinces  in  any  way.  Even  the 
foreign  trade  of  Manchuria  will  be  subject  in  the 
course  of  time,  in  all  probability,  to  Russian  tariffs. 
In  Shan-tung  the  Germans  are  carrying  out  a  policy 
similar  to  that  of  the  Russians  in  Manchuria.  Though 
the  port  of  Tsing-tao  is  nominally  open  to  all  the 
world,  foreign  merchants  are  not  welcomed  there 
unless  they  are  of  German  nationality.  The  railways 
in  Shan-tung  are  entirely  German,  and  the  right  to 
exploit  the  minerals  of  the  province  is  reserved  for 
Germans.  We  could  not,  in  any  circumstances,  have 
secured  for  ourselves  exclusive  privileges  of  a  like 
nature  in  the  Yangtze  Valley.  To  have  done  so 
would  have  been  contrary  to  all  the  traditions  of  our 
colonial  policy.  Therefore,  in  ]  ending  ourselves  to 
what  was  virtually  the  partition  of  China,  we  had  a 
great  deal  to  lose  and  nothing  to  gain.  It  is  probable 
that  sooner  or  later  we  must  have  realised  our  mis¬ 
take  in  the  ordinary  course  of  events  ;  but  the  para¬ 
lysing  effect  of  the  South  African  War  brought  us  to 
a  sudden  awakening.  Not  only  did  Russia  seize  the 
opportunity  to  make  good  her  position  in  Manchuria, 
but  Germany,  a  mere  novice  in  Chinese  politics, 


RAILWAYS  AND  SPHERES  OF  INFLUENCE  243 


began  to  carry  matters  with  a  high  hand.  When  we 
entered  into  an  agreement  with  her  to  respect  the 
integrity  of  China — a  purely  gratuitous  step  on  our 
part — she  interpreted  the  agreement,  with  almost 
barefaced  effrontery,  to  mean  that  the  Spheres  of 
Influence  theory  held  good  for  Manchuria  and  Shan¬ 
tung  but  not  for  the  Yangtze  Valley,  and  in  order  to 
leave  no  doubt  in  our  minds  she  sent  a  garrison  to 
Shanghai  and  kept  it  there  as  long  as  it  was  possible 
to  do  so. 

In  a  certain  sense  the  encumbrance  of  the  South 
African  War  may  be  said  to  have  been  a  blessing  in 
disguise,  for  the  extreme  folly  of  the  Spheres  of 
Influence  policy  was  brought  home  to  us  more  quickly 
and  forcibly  than  might  otherwise  have  been  the 
case.  In  the  meantime,  America  stepped  into  the 
arena  and  began  to  take  up  the  old  cry  of  the  “  open 
door  ”  with  new  vigour.  There  is  this  to  be  said  for 
the  United  States  Government,  that  it  has  never 
wavered  in  this  respect.  It  may  be  urged  with  truth 
that  no  other  policy  but  that  of  the  “  open  door  ”  could 
possibly  commend  itself  to  the  people  of  America, 
who  have  a  growing  foreign  trade  to  take  care  of  and 
are  constitutionally  averse  from  territorial  aggrandise¬ 
ment.  But  our  need  of  the  “  open  door  ”  was  all  along 
just  as  clear.  We  only  sw'erved  from  the  true  path 
when  we  were  jockeyed  into  believing  that  we  had 
secured  a  great  prize  by  falling  in  with  Russia’s 
views.  Only  this  year  Russia  endeavoured  to  lead 
the  United  States  astray  in  a  similar  manner  by 
offering  to  do  a  private  deal  with  her  over  the  Man¬ 
churian  question.  Mr.  Hay  was  not  to  be  taken  in, 


244  RAILWAYS  AND  SPHERES  OF  INFLUENCE 


and  he  consulted  the  interests  of  the  United  States, 
and  also  of  the  world  at  large,  when  he  refused  to 
make  any  separate  bargain  with  Russia. 

If  we  were  slow  to  understand  the  true  inwardness 
of  the  Spheres  of  Influence  policy,  we  were  equally 
uncertain  about  the  value  of  railways  as  a  political 
factor.  It  seems  fairly  obvious  now  that  Russia 
secured  the  control  of  Manchuria  six  years  ago,  when 
she  cut  the  first  sod  of  the  Manchurian  railway. 
When  you  hold  the  main  artery  of  traffic  through  a 
country  and  are  allowed  to  protect  it  with  your  troops 
you  are  just  as  much  master  of  the  country  as  if  you 
had  formally  annexed  it.  There  never  was  any 
secret  about  the'  conditions  attached  to  the  Man¬ 
churian  Railway  concession,  and  the  result  of  that 
concession  was  always  a  foregone  conclusion  ;  yet  for 
six  years  the  British  Government,  through  the  mouth 
of  its  foreign  secretaries  and  under-secretaries,  has 
been  adhering  to  the  old  belief  that  Manchuria  is 
part  of  the  Chinese  Empire  and  must  be  evacuated 
by  Russia.  The  veriest  novice  in  diplomacy  must 
recognise  the  fact  that  Russia  cannot  evacuate  Man¬ 
churia  in  any  real  sense  of  the  words  without  surrender¬ 
ing  the  concession  for  a  railway  which  she  has  already 
built,  and  to  expect  her  to  do  that  is  surely  the  height 
of  absurdity.  It  is  equally  absurd  to  keep  her  in  a 
constant  state  of  irritation  by  asking  her  to  do  what 
we  must  know  she  has  no  intention  of  doing,  and 
what  we  certainly  cannot  make  her  do.  It  is  not  neces¬ 
sary,  on  the  other  hand,  as  some  people  suggest,  to 
come  to  an  understanding  with  Russia.  All  we  have  to 
do  is  to  acknowledge  the  facts  of  the  case  and  make 


RAILWAYS  AND  SPHERES  OF  INFLUENCE  245 


our  own  plans  in  accordance  with  them.  And 
certainly  one  of  the  first  steps  towards  that  end  is 
to  recognise  what  railways  have  done  in  the  past  to 
convert  Spheres  of  Influence  into  something  of  a  more 
permanent  nature. 


